


Method to our Madness

by Deejaymil



Series: New Beginnings [2]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dormmate AU, Drug Use, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Moving On, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 04:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4863809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been ten years since Spencer Reid took a bullet for his friends, and everything has changed. Rossi's already been divorced twice, Haley's leaving Hotch, and Morgan hates the career he'd worked so hard to succeed in. It's no wonder that they only seem to catch up every other year now, life has a way of racing by. Now, Emily Prentiss is back from a job she can't talk about, and something happened to Reid that he won't talk about. </p><p>When a case goes horribly wrong in Boston, is it finally the catalyst to bring them all back together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tidings

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta, Greeneyedconstellations.

“He’s a sociopath, Gideon. You can’t trust him. “Your judgement has been compromised—you’re making the wrong call!”

Garcia stared at the two agents squaring off in the doorway of Gideon’s office, her heart climbing into her throat to escape the tension of the moment.  “Oh. My. God. Gideon’s going to eat him like a bug,” Garcia whispered to the man slouching next to her with his butt on the corner of Reid’s desk. Reid disappeared into the depths of the office, his face a thundercloud, Gideon slamming the door behind him. The blinds quickly followed, hiding the argument.

Coiro snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. He shifted on Reid’s desk, poking at a bobble-headed cat that Garcia had brought her friend years ago, during what she privately referred to as ‘The Bad Times.’ “I owe Weis fifty bucks. I didn’t think Reid had the balls to face up to Gideon.”

“What’s going on up there?” One of their teammates wandered over, looking intrigued by the tightly sealed office. “Someone getting fired? Surely not. You’re still here Coiro, and we all know you’d be the first to go when the budget gets cut again.” Coiro rolled his eyes and mouthed _ha_ at her. Garcia held back a really, really inappropriate giggle, since Weis’ comment had just pointed out that, _holy shit what if he fires Spence, oh no oh no…_

“Reid drew the short straw,” Coiro said, picking up Reid’s pen and nibbling absentmindedly at the end of it. “He’s confronting Gideon about Bale.”

Garcia ached with second-hand tension from the misery she knew her old friend would have been battling with in order to tell the man he admired most that he was wrong. “Did you really have to send our little Junior G-Man in there? Gideon… he probably won’t listen to him. You’re more senior than Reid is.” She smacked the pen away from him, ignoring the puppy-eyed pout he shot her. She’d been dealing with Reid’s pouts since college—and Reid had taught _him_ how to pout. “If Reid finds out you put your mouth on his pen, he’ll throw the lot out. And then do something horrible to your stationary as retribution. Remember the glitter thing.”

“Gideon’s not gonna listen to anyone that’s not Gideon at the moment,” Coiro said, ignoring her scolding. “But Rossi’s not here to be the shit-stirrer, and Reid’s the only other person who won’t get suspended for questioning him. Come on, you know that Gideon thinks the sun shines out of Reid’s—” Weis punched his arm, cutting him off.

“Glad I’m not your friend,” Weis muttered, taking a seat on the desk opposite and studying the office door intently, like she was trying to profile the men on the other side through the thick wood. Maybe she could. Garcia had never ceased to be amazed by her co-worker’s talents. “You let him get cornered by those insane women at the bar last week, you didn’t tell him that the woman hitting on him during his last case was a prostitute, you signed him up to be a model at that life-painting class, and now you let Gideon tear into him? Fuck me, Coiro.”

Coiro’s face shifted into a woeful kind of hurt that would have been convincing if Garcia hadn’t spent her formative years following David Rossi around. He sat up, brushing dark hair out of his face almost guiltily. “Hey, those first three were  _funny_. Working girls love Reid. He needs to learn how to talk to women eventually; he can’t marry his books. I was just doing him a solid.”

The door opened, a red-faced Reid walking and determinedly staring ahead. Coiro dropped Reid’s pen into his drawer and slammed it shut, plastering an innocent grin on his face as their co-worker slunk over to them. The door slammed shut on the retreating agent’s back.

“Morning, Spence. Lovely day,” Weis said with false cheer, trying to match Coiro’s innocent expression and failing.

Reid’s eyes met Garcia’s, a grimness in them that chilled her. He ignored the attempt at small-talk. “We’re going to Boston.”

“Damn,” Weis sighed. The innocent face vanished, replaced with the eagle-eyed sharpness they all wore when on the job. Garcia watched with interest; she got a strange kind of kick out of seeing her friends shift into ‘agent mode.’ Reid was already there. Coiro… well, he generally left it a little longer to take things seriously. “This is going to be a bad one. Gideon’s too wrapped up in Bale.”

Reid shrugged, badly faking nonchalance. “We’ve had worse. Get the rest of the team ready. Wheels up in twenty.”

Garcia chanted her usual prayer in her head as her team left, their expressions taut with stress. The only one still smiling was Coiro, tapping at his phone and chattering to the fuming Spencer.  _Please let them all come home_. _Please let them all stay safe. Please bring my family back okay._

 

* * *

 

Morgan took a deep breath as he stepped into the bar, glancing about at the patrons with a cop’s trained eye. The bar was relatively empty for the hour of the day, the few people scattered about the room either drinking silently or watching the large TV screens mounted on the walls. A grin split his face as his gaze fell onto two women sitting close together at the bar, heads bowed together in conversation. “Ladies, ladies, ladies,” he called, walking up behind them and holding his arms out with a huge grin.

JJ and Emily both lit up immediately at the sight of him. JJ jumped into his arms, hugging him tightly. “Derek! It’s so good to see you!”

“Long time no see, Derek,” Emily said. “How long has it been, two years?”

He hugged her close as well, feeling her tense slightly before returning the gesture. He’d only seen her a handful of times since she’d left to work with her mother, her busy schedule rarely allowing for casual visits. JJ he’d seen a lot more; she’d settled down only a few hours away from him with a media liaison position at a government agency. He’d still missed her though, missed all his college friends. Even Rossi. Slipping onto the stool next to JJ, he ordered a beer and allowing himself a moment to relax. It’d been a tough week at work, rough cases with no real resolutions. And whispers of corruption in his department…

“So, how’s cop life treating you?” Emily asked him.

“Everything I expected,” Morgan answered honestly, avoiding the thorny points of that question. “What’s it like doing… what do you do, anyway?”

Emily’s eyes flicked up to them and away. “How’re Aaron and Dave? Dave still a horn-dog?” Morgan wasn’t the only one avoiding questions.

JJ snorted. “He’s been married twice. Twice! Where does he keep finding women willing to marry him?”

“I can’t even find one willing to stay the night,” Morgan moaned, shaking his head at their incorrigible friend. “Lucky dog.”

“Lucky is finding a woman to stay long enough to change the sheets on the wedding bed,” JJ said. “Did you hear about Aaron and Haley?”

Morgan drank from the cup silently. He’d heard. He hadn’t been shocked. Aaron was an FBI lawyer. The FBI career track was about as good for a marriage as a cop’s was.

“She’s taking Jack,” JJ said softly, finger tracing the condensation on her glass. “He’s not even fighting it, he’s just letting her go. Poor Aaron.”

He could sense the mood shifting, turning glum. He cast his memory over the last few months, desperately searching for something they could talk about that would lift the atmosphere back to the fun banter they’d enjoyed previously. “Hey, anyone heard from Spence?”

He sensed his misstep instantly. JJ looked away, face stilling as Emily took an unnecessarily large gulp of her drink. Sure, bring up the guy who’d dropped out of their lives years ago. Not a phone call, not a letter, not a text. Nothing. Morgan had lost count of the messages he’d left him. He knew Spence had been struggling with something, something he wasn’t willing to talk to them about, but he’d assumed he’d ask them for help eventually. They’d all assumed.

They’d been wrong.

“I haven’t spoken to him in years,” Emily said finally. “He’s on Dave’s team though, isn’t he? With Pen? I’m sure he’s fine.”

If Morgan hadn’t spent the last three months obsessively mistrusting everyone in his department, he would have believed her.

But he’d gotten really good at spotting liars.

He let it slide. “So, JJ,” he teased, plastering a smile back on his face. “What’s this about a new man I hear?”

 

* * *

 

Rossi dropped a box near his solemn friend, who was holding a battered pirate hat and looking miserable. “Aaron, let me tell you, I’ve been through two divorces. You can’t bring mementos, you’ll just obsess over them.”

“I joined this play to get closer to her,” Aaron admitted. “She was the most beautiful girl in school, and I was the worst pirate ever.”

Rossi leaned over and took the hat out of his hands, throwing it into the junk pile. “Even more reason to ditch it. I only have so much room at my place, you know.”

Aaron didn’t move. “She’s cheating on me.”

There was no way Rossi could possibly sound shocked by this announcement. “I know. Which is why you have to move on; she already has.”

Flicking through the channels of the TV Rossi had set up to try and make the packing slightly less monotonous, Aaron grimaced. “Jack hates me. He thinks I’m leaving because I don’t want to be his dad anymore. What can I tell a ten-year-old to make him believe that his parents splitting up isn’t his fault?”

There was a box filled with old high school yearbooks that Rossi shoved out of sight quickly. He’d rather pick his battles. “The truth? That you still love him, you just don’t love each other? Use the clichés. He’s ten, he won’t notice.” Aaron didn’t answer, his attention firmly on the old TV set. “Come on, man, he’s just upset. He’ll come around, especially when you get to spoil the hell outta him and be the cool dad again.” Aaron still didn’t move. Rossi approached him cautiously. “Aaron?”

“Where did you say your team was going?”

“Boston. Serial bomber case. Why?”

The newscaster’s grim voice filling the garage as Aaron turned the volume up. “Emergency crew are at the scene of another bombing; the third in a series of attacks that has terrorised Boston for the last few months. It is unknown if there are any casualties, but it can be confirmed that FBI specialists were on the scene, last seen entering the warehouse before it ignited. Their condition is unknown.”

Rossi wasn’t sure if he’d spoken out loud, but Aaron turned shocked eyes onto him as he fumbled for his phone. He opened his mouth, closed it again, tried desperately to speak as Aaron’s expression changed to concern. He couldn’t find words. _Not possible. Not while I’m not there. Not like this._

Rossi hit the numbers on his cell clumsily, the two of them completely silent as they waited for someone, anyone, to answer.

_“This is SSA Jason Gideon. I’m not available, leave a message.”_

He couldn’t even hear the next series of numbers over his heart slamming.

_“You’ve reached Doctor Spencer Reid. Please leave your name and a detailed message, and I’ll return your call.”_

 

* * *

 

Reid was familiar presence at Coiro’s side, shoulders bowed. Coiro shifted his feet slightly, nudging his elbow against his friend’s side. “Why so glum, chum?”

“What?” Eyes flickered up to meet his, one eyebrow raised.

“You’re quiet. Withdrawn. You want me to profile you, Spence? I’ll do it.” It was an empty threat and Reid knew it. They profiled every person they met, every moment of the day. It was automatic. “Come on man, you gotta get your head in the game. I need you at my back.” He scooped up a bulletproof vest, shoving it towards his friend.

_“Ready to move in,”_ crackled the radio at Reid’s side.

“This is it,” he said, watching Reid’s posture stiffen. “Let’s go get that hostage, then we’ll go out and get you drunk, okay? Case over, bad feelings gone.”

A jerky nod was his answer, Reid following him into position as Coiro signalled to the rest of the team to take the other two entrances. Weis stood by Reid, gun ready, eyes on Coiro. They followed his lead in Gideon’s absence, their unit chief back with Bale at the station trying to find out what exactly his intentions were behind taking a hostage before getting caught.

Coiro wasn’t worried. His team was good. They’d be fine.

If Reid got his shit together, anyway, his gaze skittering about the corridor, gun uneven in shaking hands. Coiro didn’t need to be a profiler to see that Reid was on the edge of panic. His mind didn’t work like theirs; instead, it was constantly assessing and processing multiple outcomes from every possible interaction of events. His greatest asset. Also, often his downfall.

He couldn’t take Reid into a hostile situation when he was like this. Coiro signalled for him to fall back, ignoring the startled looks both Reid and Weis levelled at him. “Reid, out. Now. We’ll talk later.” A tinge of guilt flared up as Reid backed up, expression hurt, and left without a word. He wouldn’t argue with a direct command when Coiro had his ‘leader’ pants on, although no doubt there’ll be hell to pay for it later.

From Reid and no doubt Gideon as well, once he found out that Coiro overruled him and pulled Reid from the raid. But he shoved the thought to the back of his mind, finally able to focus on his job now he wasn’t worried about a keyed-up genius with an itchy trigger finger at his back.

 

* * *

 

Reid was barely a foot from the warehouse door and fuming silently when an invisible hand punched into his spine and hurled him forward into the dirt. Heat hit him moments later, ripping the air from his lungs.

He wasn’t conscious to hear the boom.


	2. Grief

Morgan felt like an outsider, like he was in the one place he had no right to be. The week had been an endless stream of funerals and grieving families, his friends shell-shocked and stricken around him. He’d never known any of Dave’s team, never sat with them and had a drink or had one of them save his life. He couldn’t fathom the depth of the grief in the lines on his old friend’s face, the normally cheerful man quiet and withdrawn the whole week by.

They had all tried to be there for Dave and Spencer throughout the horrible events of the past fortnight, but JJ had only lasted two funerals before she couldn’t bear the idea of another, and Emily was close behind her. Penelope had pushed through, although her face had grown grimmer as the days had passed.

But this one was different.

Aaron had been a silent presence by his best friend’s side the whole time and they all pretended not to notice the way that Dave had begun to lean into him more and more, as though the other man’s steady arm was the only thing holding him upright. Notably absent from the crowds of FBI personnel attending all of the ceremonies were two faces. Morgan had heard Dave viciously commenting on Gideon’s disappearance, not letting the older profiler have any slack for the breakdown that Boston had caused. The deaths of the six agents weighed heavily on the three remaining members of the team, but Gideon had the added weight of his own guilt and Dave’s blame.  

None of them had seen Spencer since Aaron and Dave had left the hospital with him, marred only by minor abrasions from being thrown to the ground during the explosion; the only one at the warehouse to live.

“Where’s Reid?” Dave asked, voice strained, eyes scanning the sea of black in front of them.

“He didn’t go to any of the other funerals, why would he go to this one?” Aaron answered, glancing about. “I haven’t seen him since he left the hospital.”

“He’ll go to this one,” Dave replied quietly, mouth tight. Morgan followed his line of sight, stomach twisting at the sight of their old friend standing back from the crowd, sunglasses on despite being firmly placed in the shadows of a tree. He’d lost weight in the three years since they’d last been face to face, hair lank and expression blank with some unfathomable pain. “Ethan Coiro was his friend.”

JJ took a deep breath from behind him, and Emily tensed. Morgan strode forward, his heart in his throat.

Things had been so much simpler back then.

 

* * *

 

Strauss tapped a handful of files on the desk, straightening the edges. “Your application is impressive, very impressive. You would be an asset to our team in these difficult times. Of course, there would be conditions to your employment.”

Emily brushed her hands across her knees. “Of course. I understand that my application is unusual, but my references should stand on their own—” Strauss cut her off with a wave of her hand, sliding the files forward and tapping the top one with one careful nail. Emily swallowed her words and took the top folder, scanning the page revealed as she flipped it open. Dave stared back out at her, his cocky grin barely contained in the short time the camera had taken to snap his employee ID photo. “I… I’m not entirely sure I understand, ma’am.”

“The BAU is in crisis,” Strauss said firmly, crossing her fingers and staring at Emily over the thin frames of her reading glasses. “Agent Gideon has stepped down for the time being, citing medical leave, and Agents Rossi and Reid are grieving the loss of their fallen colleagues. It falls to me to replace those lost in Boston. I need to know that there is someone in the field I can trust.”

Emily stared at Dave’s photo, seeing the kid she’d met so many years ago in his eyes and smile. Neither of which she saw anymore when she looked at him. “You want me to spy on my co-workers?”

“I need to know if there’s anything that affects their ability to do their jobs. Anything they’re hiding.” Strauss smiled the most cunning smile Emily had seen since she’d stopped going to her mother’s for dinner. “And of course, _Agent_ Prentiss, I have Jennifer Jareau’s application for the media liaison position. Also impressive, but it would serve me to look more favourably upon it if we could come to the same agreement.” It occurred to Emily that if they didn’t take these positions, someone else would.

Time to be charming as hell. Dave was going to buy her a goddamn drink when this was over.

 

* * *

 

Rapping his fingers against the wood of his coffee table, Reid sprawled across his couch, craning his neck against the armrest and distracting himself by reciting the reports of his last three cases from memory. He got two cases back before his mind slammed up against Boston, hand clenching unconsciously against his side and brain stuttering to a halt.

The grief had turned into physical pain, burning in his chest as though he could reach into his ribs and remove it like he would a tumour, leaving behind clean, healthy flesh. He couldn’t forget a single moment, every second they’d spent together burned into his memory and replaying over and over again to torture him. If he felt like it, he could calculate the exact amount of time they’d had between the first time they’d shaken hands and the moment the warehouse had ignited.

He’d been spared, for some unknown reason, but he took no pleasure from his survival. Sparing him, the isolated Spencer Reid, —friendless, now—but for some reason taking Margaret Weis, —mother of two—Sean Vance, —took his morning coffee with honey—Todd Archer, —owned twenty-four ties and favoured the blue ones—Ethan Coiro—your friend, was your friend, gone now.

Why?

Out of all of them, only one was dispensable. He closed his eyes and slipped his hand into his pocket, seeking freedom from his pain. His hand tightened on the bottles.

He was alone now.

Nothing could change that anymore.


	3. Secrets

JJ nervously smoothed down her skirt, staring at herself in the mirror. Wide blue eyes, straight pale blonde hair, careful makeup: she was about as ready as she’d ever be. She turned off the tap sharply, flicking droplets of water off her fingertips and running her hands over her thighs. _Shit_ , she cussed, realizing what she’d done moments after she’d done it and daubing at the damp patches on either side of her skirt. Just when she needed to look her best. Dave was going to be _impossible_ if she walked onto her first day as the BAU’s media liaison with a wet ass.

Then again, she supposed that was probably the downside to having your superior being the guy you used to do jello shots with in college. It could be worse anyway. In some alternate reality, she could be working for Aaron and he’d _never_ let her forget rocking up to work with a wet butt. She gathered her wits and stepped out of the restroom, straight into the arms of someone who looked like Penelope Garcia but appeared to be positively vibrating on the spot.

“JJ,” shrieked Penelope, lunging at her and pulling her into a violent hug. “You got the job, you got the job, you’re here, you got the job and… why is your skirt wet?”

JJ wasn’t sure, because an eyeful of bright purple blouse was impeding her vision, but she was pretty sure that Emily Prentiss was hovering behind Penelope with the biggest grin she’d ever seen on the woman’s face. JJ craned her neck and tried to smile through the crushing force on her ribcage, earning a wink from her old friend.

Another woman stood slightly back from Emily, watching them with a discerning gaze. “The BAU is becoming an all-girls’ club,” the other woman stated with a smile, tucking wavy brown hair behind her ear. “Three new hires, all female.”

“I know, isn’t it great?” Penelope said. “Poor Reid isn’t going to know what to do with himself. And someone’s going to need to put a leash on Rossi before they write another rule about fraternization because of him.”

JJ finally managed to extract herself from Penelope’s grip, stepping towards the other woman and extending her hand with a bright smile she’d perfected over the last seven years in her career. “Jennifer Jareau, the new media liaison. Call me JJ.”

The woman took her hand, grip firm and confident. “Elle Greenaway. I specialise in sexual crimes. Welcome to the madhouse.”

Emily brushed her shoulder against JJ, a gesture of familiarity that was strangely comforting from the normally reticent woman. “Scared?” she asked, lowering the pitch of her voice.

“Petrified,” JJ admitted. “Have you seen the pile of incoming files on the desk freshly labelled ‘Jennifer JJ Jareau’? If it fell on Spence, it’d crush him. Em, you talked me into signing up for this job, you bear responsibility for this as well.”

Emily looked guilty. “Yeeah… that’s not the only thing we’ve signed up for.”

Penelope was studying them both, her expression puzzled, Elle leaning against the wall and watching blankly. JJ’s eyes flickered to each of their faces, calculating for a moment. She could almost taste the unsaid words in the air, the things that Emily was only barely holding back.

“Do you have somewhere private we can talk?” JJ asked Penelope, thinking of Dave who’d be haunting her office waiting for her to show up, and the hordes of FBI personnel wandering around the bullpen. Elle stepped back a moment, looking as though she was about to make excuses and leave. “Somewhere we can _all_ talk?” It wouldn’t exactly be a great start to exclude team members on her first day. And there was something in Elle’s brown eyes that seemed... trustworthy.

“I… yes, my office is near here. Batcave. Room.” Penelope paused. “Penelope’s Den of Sin.” JJ followed her into a small, dark room filled with monitors and bright, sparkly knickknacks that instantly had her reminiscing fondly over their dorm days. The four of them piled in, carefully closing the door and turning to face Emily, who was trying to appear nonchalant.

And failing.

“So,” Emily began with a loud exhale of breath. “JJ, we may have been hired to spy on Spence and Dave for Strauss.”

The stunned silence in the room broke as Elle chuckled: “Oh, good. And just when I thought this job had gotten boring.”

 

* * *

 

She could just see the top of Spencer’s head bowed at his desk, busily scribbling in the margins of a report. Sensing an opportunity for fun, she carefully tiptoed up behind him, slowly reaching for his shoulder. “Do you remember what happened to the last person to do that?” he said, voice muffled by the desk.

Emily laughed, raising her hand to ruffle his hair and perching on the desk next to him. He leaned back and raised his eyebrows at her, fingers steepled around his pen. She was immediately sorry she’d mussed his hair; he showed no inclination to fix what she’d done. “Yes. I’m pretty sure it was Dave and nothing happened to him.”

Spencer dropped the pen on his desk, pushing it back with a casual gesture. “Yes, but I seriously thought about doing something to him. The intent was there.”

She laughed, fond of the strange, awkward man in front of her even after all their years apart. He looked much better than the month before at Ethan Coiro’s funeral. It wasn’t a high bar to beat, since he’d resembled one of the corpses being buried that day, but any improvement was welcome. She leaned forward, smile vanishing as she studied his face. He met her gaze calmly, eyes shadowed and skin taut from lack of sleep and looking like a man grieving, no surprise. But there was something more that niggled at her, something that he was clearly expecting her to overlook. “Are you ok?” she asked gently.

He tilted his head, examining her right back. “Why? What gives you the impression that I’m not okay?”

“Your perpetually crooked tie,” she teased, tweaking the offending item. “Seriously, Spencer. You’re allowed to not be okay. No one was expecting you to come straight back to work; even Dave took a week off.”

“You’ve been here three weeks after vanishing for ten years, and you think you can profile me?” Spencer replied coolly, not breaking his gaze. It was a far cry from the nervous, stumbling teenager she’d met in college, and not entirely unwelcome.

Okay, in this context, it was a _little_ unwelcome.

“I’m here after my friend lost someone very close to him, and now I want to know if he’s okay,” she corrected gently. “Why so defensive? What are you hiding?”

His reply was instant and precise. “Where were you the last two years?”

“With my mother. You know this. Don’t try to turn this around on me.”

Spencer dragged open one of his drawers and rifled around. Emily caught a quick glimpse of candy wrappers and a packet of snack-sized chocolate bars before he withdrew his hand, a small stack of cards held loosely between his fingers. He tossed them on the desk next to her, one falling open and revealing familiar handwriting.

“You keep my Christmas cards?” she asked, oddly touched.

Spencer didn’t answer, just opened another card and slotted it side by side with the first. “I do handwriting analysis weekly for my job, Prentiss. The last two years you didn’t write the cards. Because you couldn’t, because you were somewhere where you weren’t allowed to contact anybody. Undercover? Secret Service? It has to be one of them, otherwise you wouldn’t have the qualifications to jump ship straight into the BAU.”

She stared at him, stunned, trying and failing to find the words that would stop this conversation and get them firmly back on safe ground. She’d forgotten how fucking adroit he was. She dropped her gaze first, eyes lowering to watch his hands splayed casually on the desk. “Reid, I…”

His hands shook slightly against the wood.

Her head shot up, eyes narrowed as she focused her attention on him anew, suspicious this time. The cocky air vanished as soon as he saw the suspicion in her eyes, looking away guiltily and running a hand through his long hair, messing it up even more and letting it fall forward into his face. It was a gesture she’d seen thousands of times at college, when he was scared or uncertain, or hiding something. And it looked horribly out of place on this taller, broader Spencer, like he should have left that behind at college along with his still-cracking voice, crippling insecurities and fears.

She was starting to get the impression he hadn’t left as much of those last two things behind as she’d thought he had.

Dave appeared out of nowhere, startling them both. “Hope JJ’s got herself sorted, we’ve got a case. Get your go-bags, jet leaves in thirty.”

Spencer was up and out the door after him before she even had time to stand.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Dad.” Jack’s voice was sullen, reluctant to talk. Hotch could hear the anger simmering through the phone line.

“Jack, buddy. How have you been? How’s school?” Aiming his tone at cheerful, hoping he could lead the conversation away from dangerous waters.

“Fine. And fine.” Silence.

He should have known that Jack had inherited the Hotchner gene for stubbornness.

“How are your friends?”

An angry huff made the line crackle unpleasantly in his ear. “When are you coming home?”

Heart clenching painfully in his chest, Hotch winced. “Jack, we talked about this. I’m living in DC with Uncle Dave for a while. Your mom and I have things to sort out.”

“Why can’t you sort them out here? With me?” There was a whine in his son’s voice that both hurt and irritated him. He dropped his head into his free hand, kneading at his forehand as though trying to stave off a headache.

“Would you like to come visit Uncle Dave during the holidays?” he settled for saying, trying for placating. While he waited for his son to answer, he fiddled with the papers on Dave’s desk, eyes scanning the headers absently.

“Mom wants to talk,” Jack replied crankily, avoiding the question. “Bye, Dad.” And he was gone, leaving Hotch to say goodbye to empty space.

“Aaron.” Haley sounded pissed. Hotch wondered desperately whether he was ever going to have a pleasant conversation with his family ever again.

“Haley. How’s Jack? He wasn’t exactly… chatty.”

“His dad moved across the state and barely calls, he thinks he’s ruined his parent’s marriage, and his best friend has decided they’re not friends anymore. How do you think he’s going?” She stopped and he could almost hear her trying to calm herself down. When she spoke again, there was genuine concern in her voice. “How is Dave?”

“You hate Dave.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not horrified by what happened. I’ve had to put up with monthly dinners with the guy for the last ten years, I’m allowed to enquire after his well-being.”

“He’s coping. They’re all coping. I think it helps that I’m here. For him.”

Her voice softened, broke. “I am glad. You were always a good friend.” He could hear the unspoken addendum to that sentence. She didn’t need to say it for him to know she was thinking it, ‘ _a good friend, but a terrible husband.’_

“I have to go,” he said, thinking longingly of some aspirin and a darkened room. “Tell Jack I love him.” Haley replied with something non-committal, hanging up quickly. Hotch dropped the phone into the cradle, knocking a pile of paperwork off Dave’s desk. He swore, reaching down to shuffle it into order and pausing as a header caught his eye. _Application for the FBI National Academy_. Why would Dave have an application for the academy?

Hotch settled back into the desk chair and began reading the papers intently.


	4. Again

Rossi was standing by the lost agent’s wall looking thoughtful, a rigidness to his posture that made a hard lump of discomfort form in Garcia’s belly. Walking up behind him, she followed his line of sight, swallowing nervously. Ethan Coiro grinned out of the frame at them, his cocky smirk filled with the arrogance of a man convinced he had all the time in the world left to him to do with as he pleased.

“The folly of youth,” Rossi said softly without looking at her. “A whole life taken from him, and here’s me barely using mine. How is that fair?”

“You’re only thirty-six,” Garcia pointed out numbly, side-stepping the implications behind Rossi’s depressing statement. “I’d hardly call that end game. Besides, without you Aaron would have to work out the microwave by himself. Or go into foster care.”

Rossi turned to her, pasting a tired smile onto his face and abruptly changing the subject. “Well, now we’re done reminiscing about past colleagues, we’d better actually go do some of the work the government is apparently paying us to do.”

Garcia reached out, brushed her fingers against the cool glass of Coiro’s photo. “How do you propose we do that?” she asked in a low voice completely unlike her. Rossi paused and studied her, his profiling gaze on.

“Well, the general rule is: JJ gets a pile of cases, JJ picks one of those cases, JJ gives that case to us, I say ‘wheels up in arbitrary time’ and then we go save people’s lives. And you stay here and do… whatever it is you do. I don’t want to know. I _really_ don’t want to know.”

Garcia pinned him with a stare that usually made Morgan crumple like a wet paper doll. “We’ve never been more out of sync.”

“Well, this team has only been working together for three months. Elle, Emily, and JJ are all fresh. It’s going to take time to find our feet, especially with Strauss bearing down on us.”

“I mean us, our group, our friends. Spencer’s a stranger, you’re depressed, and Aaron is half-way to bailing on his life and setting up shop as your live-in house-wife. Don’t _even_ get me started on Derek.”

Rossi’s eyebrows shot up, bunching together in a consternated expression. “What exactly do you expect me to do about that?”

She thrust the armful of cookbooks in her arms at him. “You’re our leader now Gideon’s gone. Lead, O’Wise Rossi.”

Rossi took the books, examining them and grinning. “Oh goody. Food therapy. It’s college all over again.”

 

* * *

 

Emily hesitated before rapping sharply on the flaky green painted wood of Reid’s apartment door, entirely unsure of her welcome here. The knock echoed for a moment, terse silence following it. She restlessly kicked her foot against the carpet, anticipation making her tense as she waited for an answer, determined not to leave until she got one. She was so focused on swirling the carpet into geometric patterns with her shoe, she didn’t even notice that he’d opened the door and was watching her with a puzzled frown.

“What are you doing?” His voice was husky, tired. It broke her heart to hear him like that. Holding up the DVDs and bag of caramel popcorn she’d brought as a peace offering, she sidled past him and into his apartment before he could object. She’d expected his room from college; books teetering in unwieldy piles in every corner, papers shoved haphazardly in every spare nook and cranny. Maybe a battered old TV set with bunny ears and a broken volume button. Instead, the room was sparse, barely furnished. A lopsided couch half-visible under what looked like every bit of bedding he owned sat in the middle of the room, one side lined with neatly filled bookshelves. There was nothing else. No photos, no mementoes, no half-finished hobbies.

“Are you done profiling?” he asked her, shutting the door carefully and striding over to the couch, slumping on top of the bedding on his back and staring up at the roof.

There was a row of empty picture hooks on the wall next to the doorway and a cupboard with a bare top thick with dust, except for select spots. He’d taken everything that was on there off. “Not quite,” she replied, running her hand along the top of the cupboard. “I always thought I knew you the best, you know. I thought we were the closest.”

He blinked owlishly up at her. “College was ten years ago, Prentiss. People change.”

He’d never called her Prentiss before.

His hands were tucked under the blankets, hidden. Sleeves rolled down over his elbows, and that _scared_ her. She was done pretending. Pulling the file out of her bag, she dropped it on the couch next to him. He startled slightly, tensing up at the sight of it. “I had Anderson pull it from the archives for me. Actually, I had him pull everything on you from there.”

“You don’t think that’s borderline stalking?” His voice was monotone, uninterested. He wasn’t mad at her. He should be. She’d massively violated his privacy. He should be _furious._ Instead, he just flipped open the folder, turning pages lethargically. Stopped on the page where she’d underlined ‘non-consensual administration of narcotics.’ “Ah.”

“You didn’t think a drug problem was something you could come to us about?” She tried to keep the hurt out of her tone, but she knew that it was leaking through anyway, colouring their conversation with her own insecurities.

“I didn’t think it was something I could go to _anyone_ about.” He didn’t hesitate before answering, and she felt an odd sort of painful realization sink in. She wasn’t expecting him to give in so easily. “It was three years ago, you were… somewhere. Morgan was busy, JJ was busy, Hotch was busy. I was clean.”

“ _Was.”_

His gaze flickered up to meet hers, and her suspicion was cemented. He hadn’t bothered hiding it because he couldn’t, not at this time. Why had he even opened the door then?

“You’re stoned right now, aren’t you?” He didn’t answer, just shrugged in the slow, lethargic manner he’d shown since she’d walked in and dropped his eyes back to the paper. “Fucking hell, Spencer… you didn’t have to do this. You’re not alone. Any one of us would have done anything to help you.”

“You know, JJ calls me Spence,” he cut in, leaning his head back against the couch. She wondered just how stoned he was. He couldn’t be too buzzed. He seemed pretty clear. Then again, Reid at a quarter of his usual brain capacity was still twice as smart as she was. “I know. She’s always called you Spence.”

His face scrunched slightly, eyes still firmly shut, and she was pretty sure he was keeping them shut now so she couldn’t see the dampness. “She’s the only one left in the world who calls me that.” He opened his eyes and peered blearily at her. “There used to be two.”

She didn’t really know how to answer, couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose a friend like that.  Well, she could. She almost had. She remembered him lying on the floor all those years ago, covered in blood, and shuddered. She settled for leaning over and pressing two fingers against his pulse, making sure it was steady. He let her do it, clearly assuming that it would keep her calm.

“What are you going to do with this information?” he asked her, his pulse a steady thrum under her fingers.    

“Help you.” It was all she wanted. All any of them wanted.

He took a deep breath, his throat shifting against her hand. “The only TV I have is in my room. I don’t… I don’t entertain often.”

She laughed at his sheepish expression. “Well that’s good, because I don’t intend upon leaving tonight anyway.” Not until she’d turned his dusty cave upside down and found what she knew he had hidden.

It was a start.

 

* * *

 

Morgan was too far away when his partner grabbed the suspect and slammed him roughly against the wall, once, twice, too many times.

“What the hell are you doing, man?” Morgan shouted, pulling Arlo off of the guy and shaking his arm. “You ever heard of police brutality? It’s that; it’s exactly what you just did there.”

Arlo snorted, throwing his arm off. “Dirtbag had it coming, Derek. Smart assing me like that. Should fill his mouth with soap.”

The suspect wiped blood off his face and spat on the floor in front of them. “Fucking police brutality alright. I’ll have your fucking badge, you pig!”

Arlo jerked in Morgan’s grip, lunging at the idiot on the floor. Morgan swore, hauling him back and dragging him out of the interrogation room. “Cool off!” he snapped, slamming the door shut behind them and glaring at Arlo’s back as he stormed off. This was his goddamn life now. Babysitting hot headed cops with a score to settle against the world. He knew for a fact that other stations weren’t like this; other cops did their jobs with _integrity._ Somehow, he, Derek Morgan, had royally pissed off someone who had decreed that he be sent to the one district where serve and protect was just a pipe dream. This wasn’t what he’d signed up for when he’d gone to the academy…

And then there was the missing money from lock-up to worry about as well… Morgan scrubbed a hand across his face, digging his knuckles into aching eyes and watching the spots that erupted on his eyelids. He didn’t want to have to be the one who reported that, not when he suspected half his district was dirty. That’d lead to his name on the internal affairs report and a knife in his spine one day when he was walking out to his car. Or, more likely, he’d end up taking the fall for one of Arlo’s ‘dirtbags.’ He’d put five in the hospital this quarter already, with no repercussions.

Morgan was seriously considering the feasibility of a career change before he had the option taken away from him. Maybe he could hook up with Spencer and play the tables in Vegas. Or start a cooking joint with Dave. Maybe he and Penelope could run off and live on dreams and well-wishes for the rest of their lives. It was about as likely as him getting out of this shit-hole.

“Yo, Morgan,” one of the younger cops called, waving a post-it in the air. “Fella called for you. Name of Rossi. Says he has a plane ticket with your name on it. He sounds loaded, you should take it.” Morgan smiled grimly as the squad-room erupted into cat-calling and wolf-whistling, the lewdest comments coming from out of his line-of-sight. He took the post-it and scanned the contents, grinning as he felt his mood lifting.

Career change might be out of the question, but a holiday wasn’t.

 

* * *

 

“Hello, hello, hello my friends!” Derek crowed, striding in through the open doorway with his arms held out wide. “The party can begin; Derek Morgan is in the house!” Penelope squeaked and leaped up to hug him, clinging off his neck with a tenacity that would have put a sloth to shame. The others called varying greetings, raising wine glasses and beer bottles up in turn.

“Going to tell us your big surprise now we’re all here, Fearless Leader?” Penelope asked, finally letting go of Derek and dragging him over to sit next to a fidgety Spencer. Hotch watched them as Derek smiled awkwardly at Spencer, settling on the couch with a careful distance between the two of them.

Dave bowed grandly, swooping into the centre of the room and grinning. “Well firstly, welcome to our little gang. It’s been what, five? Six? Six years since we gathered together last?” He gestured in Elle’s direction with a slight nod. “And of course, to a new face. Someone introduce Greenaway to Morgan, I’m too busy exercising my flair for the dramatic.” Elle rolled her eyes at their boss, leaning back against the bench and smiling in welcome at Derek, who winked back.

Dave didn’t wait for them to get acquainted, charging ahead with his announcement. “We’ve all had a tough few months, and there’s way too many frowny faces in my presence at any one time for me to get my happy-go-lucky vibe back. So I pulled some strings, and we’re all off rotation for two weeks!” Startled exclamations met this, Hotch barely restraining a chuckle at the delayed delight on Penelope’s face as she realized she’d been handed an impromptu holiday.

“Two weeks?” Spencer asked, sitting bolt upright and stuttering. “What am I supposed to do for two weeks?”

“Cure cancer?” Elle suggested, sipping her wine with a cocky grin. “Write a book? Finish Rossi’s book for him? Learn a language or two?”

JJ shuddered, clearly remembering the time she’d tried to teach Spencer French. “Oh, trust me, you don’t want that. Spence is only a genius in English.”

Dave was waving his arms furiously, irritated at being interrupted. “You don’t need to occupy yourself for two weeks, I’ve got that covered. Tomorrow, we’re all going to _Jamaica_ for some damn rest and relaxation! And oh boy, do I intend upon relaxing.”

Derek jabbed Spencer with his elbow, clearly forgetting his unease with the other man. “He means it. You’re all going to relax, even if it means we have to tie you down on the beach.”

Spencer looked sorrowful, looking from face to face for salvation. “I don’t like beaches,” he said plaintively. “Do you know how many pathogens lurk in a single cubic foot of sand?”

Elle was smirking, clearly delighted with the turn of events. “No, but I bet by the end of this two weeks, you’ll have thoroughly informed all of us.”

“Are you coming, too?” Emily asked Hotch, tilting her head back to look up at him standing over them.

“He is indeed!” roared Dave, slinging an arm around his friend. “As a celebration!”

“Celebration of what?” JJ sounded excited, almost knowing as she watched them with bright eyes. Hotch wouldn’t be surprised if she knew already, since her job had her wading through acres of paperwork daily and conversing with every facet of the FBI.

Hotch held out the paper he’d received the day before in the mail. “I’ve been accepted into the Quantico FBI Training Academy. I’m becoming an agent!”

If Dave was a little put out that the cheer for Hotch was louder than the cheer for his holiday announcement, he handled it well.


	5. Choices

Emily didn’t snore, which should have been a relief, but in reality it meant that Reid spent most of his sleepless night hanging over the side of his single bed watching her bedcovers rise and fall and trying to gauge if she was actually asleep or just faking to keep an eye on him. He’d had a forceful flashback to high-school when Rossi had announced that they were doubling up on rooms, informing them that if they had a problem with it they could pay for their own single. Memories of being picked last for anything involving athletics must have shown in the panic on his face, because Emily had immediately looped an arm through his and declared themselves ‘roomies.’

Which, really, was like high-school, when the teams had involved anything academic and people had fallen over each other to have him on their team.

Of course, he’d have been flattered to think that Emily just wanted to share a room with him because she enjoyed his company, and not because she’d put him on a quiet ‘Spencer must be under adult supervision at all times so he doesn’t shoot up in the bathroom’ watch. He’d have assumed that was the paranoia of a relapsing addict talking, but the first thing she’d done when they’d gotten into the room was go through his bag and inform him that that was exactly what she was doing.

Score one for paranoia.

“Emily,” he whispered into his sheets, mouth pressed against the linen to muffle the sound. If she raised her head, all she’d be able to see in the slight light from the muted TV was his eyes and forehead peering at her over the side of his bed. “Psst, Emily. Are you faking?”

She didn’t so much as twitch a muscle. He didn’t trust her at all.

He bit savagely at his lip as a memory of previous hotel stays like this assailed him, except instead of Emily’s carefully packed bag and silent presence, it was Ethan sprawled out on the other bed snoring loudly and with half his belongings scattered about the room. He was messy, loud and used all the hot water up, deliberately setting his alarm earlier and earlier to stop Reid from getting up to use the shower before him.

Reid would have given anything to have him there again.

“Stop thinking so loud,” Emily said into the gloom of the room, still looking for all the world as though she was asleep. Reid pulled a face at her in the dark, safe in the knowledge she couldn’t see him and mock him for it. He’d known she was faking! “And stop pulling faces at me. Go to sleep, so I can, too.”

Reid twitched his feet under the sheets, pressing his face into the cool bedding and thinking of sleeping. Quiet, drifting sleep, comas, cat-naps, sheep, unconsciousness… it wasn’t working.

“I’m bored,” he muttered. His mind raced. “It’s hot, this room smells musty, I can’t sleep, and you’re not going to sleep. You’re going to stay awake and creepily watch me all night, and then somehow look as though you’ve had a full night’s sleep in the morning.”

Emily sat up and peered at him, her eyes glinting in the blue light from the screen. “You’re not bored, you’re withdrawing. Stop being a cranky little shit and go to sleep. It’s like sharing a room with my little brother.”

“You don’t have a little brother.”

She glared at him before flopping back onto the bed and pulling a pillow over her face. Her voice muffled by the pillow but still audible. “That’s what I thought. Look how wrong I turned out to be.”

Reid ignored her, closing his eyes and reciting backwards the last book he’d read from memory until he reached page forty and finally drifted off.

 

* * *

 

Morgan was woken by crashing knocks on his door. “Gak,” he mumbled, his cheek pressed into a damp patch of drool on his pillow.

“You answer it,” came the equally sleepy response from the other bed, Penelope’s blonde head disappearing under the covers. “The Oracle of Information doesn’t open till nine.”

Morgan made some sort of noise, stumbling out of his bed and fumbling at the door, eyes still stuck shut with sleep. “What?” he groaned, pulling it open and squinting against the dull hallway light.

Aaron looked way too awake for this hour of the morning, eyes bright and concerned, like a border collie trying to herd a child away from a waterway. “JJ’s been arrested.”

Morgan unsealed his eyes and stared at Aaron blankly, waiting for the punchline. “What?” he repeated stupidly when that punchline failed to come.

The door yanked out of his hand and Penelope was there, bright orange silk pyjamas only serving to accent the craziness of her hair at that moment. “What?” she asked.

“Dave’s down the station with her. They found a body in the room next to hers and Elle’s and a blood trail leading right to her door.”

“Only outside her room?” Morgan asked, cop brain kicking in and whirring with the possibilities, at the same time Penelope half-yelled, “Where’s Elle?” into his ear.

Aaron shrugged, his forehead furrowed with worry. “Yeah. And we don’t know, she wasn’t in the room when the police arrested JJ, and I haven’t been able to speak to her yet. I’ve been calling her cell, no answer. We only know because Dave ran into the cops with JJ as he was coming back to our room; he called me from the car.”

Looked like their holiday was over before it had barely begun. “I’ll get dressed and round up Emily and Spencer. We’ll find Elle if you two want to head straight down to the station,” Morgan instructed, wide awake now.

Before any of them could react, Aaron’s phone trilled loudly. “Elle,” he said with audible relief as he checked the screen. “Where are you? I have no idea who the body is, JJ’s been arrested for it.” Morgan could hear Elle’s voice rising in pitch on the other end of the line, Aaron flinching and pulling the phone slightly away from his ear. “We’re heading down there now. Go straight to Emily’s room and wake them, we’ll meet you there.”

“Oh, to have a simple life,” Penelope muttered, reaching for her suitcase.

 

* * *

 

Dave tapped at the steering wheel edgily as he pulled into his driveway, face tense. “Not quite the relaxing experience I planned,” he grumbled. “At least I got a full refund for the hotel…”

“Generally how it goes when a body is found in the room next to yours and you’re falsely accused,” Hotch remarked wryly, his head aching. “It would just be bad customer service otherwise. The others meeting you back at the BAU?”

Derek shifted restlessly in the back seat as Dave nodded his assent. “Man, bring me in as a consult. I can help. Don’t leave me sitting at home with Aaron twiddling my thumbs while you guys try to work this out.”

Dave was already shaking his head as he got out the car. “I can’t justify bringing in a cop with no connection to the murder; we’re not even supposed to be investigating this.”

Derek opened his mouth to argue but Hotch cut him off, eyes on the porch. “Are you expecting a delivery, Dave?” he asked cautiously, Dave’s hand dropping to his hip for a weapon he wasn’t wearing at the sight of the large box on his doorstep. They moved towards it as a group, all wary.

“Looks like it’s your lucky day,” Dave commented, staring down at the gory contents of the box. “You’re both coming to the BAU.”

“And it only took a head in a box to do it,” Derek replied, face grim.

 

* * *

 

“You guys regularly get crazies like this?” Derek asked as Reid squinted down at the collection of items they had on the table in the conference room.

“Only on Tuesdays. Thursdays, we get arsonists, and Friday is a potluck,” Emily responded absently, eyes scanning the page of numbers that a courier had left tucked into her door. JJ was turning over the mounted butterfly she’d found on her desk, mouth pursed in concentration.

“Maybe the press conference was a mistake,” she said softly, blue eyes worried.

“It was the best choice we had at the time,” Rossi replied sharply, hoping to god he was right. He couldn’t doubt himself now. This was the first thing to really test his leadership since Gideon left… he had to believe it was the right choice.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Reid complained, pacing. “None of this makes sense, it’s not clever, it’s just convoluted. I should be able to see through it! I can’t think, can’t calculate…”

Rossi stood, eyebrows raised at Reid’s manic muttering. “Hey, it’s fine. None of us can understand.”

Reid span on him, eyes furious and red-rimmed with exhaustion. “Well, that’s nothing new for you!” he spat with uncharacteristic spite in his voice. The room fell silent, all eyes shocked and on the two men facing each other. Rossi stared at him, stunned by the raw _anger_ in his voice. _What the fuck?_ But Reid still wasn’t doneL “No one expects you to be the one to work it out, it’s all on me!”

“Woah, Reid,” Emily said, stepping towards him with one hand held in a placating motion. “Calm down. We’re all tired and stressed, that’s all.” Her eyes were on Rossi, seemingly begging him not to respond to the blatant challenge to his authority Reid had just issued. And in that gaze, he could see that she knew something he didn’t and _should_.

He didn’t have to be a genius to work out what.

Elle sat up from where she’d been dozing on the couch, eyes bleary. “Maybe we’re looking at it wrong,” she suggested, standing and instantly stumbling. “Woah…”

Emily caught her arm, steading her. “We’re not going to solve this if we’re too tired to think straight,” she pointed out. “We’ve all been awake over a day now, we should take shifts to go home and rest.”

Rossi was still glaring at Reid, the other agent meeting his gaze with a simmering anger that he’d only ever shown once before. And if the cause was the same…

Rossi had really fucking dropped the ball on this one.

They’d handled it then, and they’d handle it now. Just not today. Today they needed their heads on straight. And at this point, Reid couldn’t do that. “Right,” Rossi agreed, hiding his fear with sharpness instead. “Reid, drive Greenaway home. Your place or hers, I don’t care, but you stay together and get some rest. Come back in nine hours with clear heads.”

Reid bristled, but Elle opened her mouth to answer and ended up yawning with bone-cracking force, swaying slightly on the spot, and he relented. Nodding silently, he took her bag and walked her to the exit.

“Go to Elle’s,” Emily said abruptly. Rossi frowned at her, not happy she’d kept this valuable nugget of information from him, but her gaze skittered away from his guiltily. “We’ll know how to contact you there.”

Reid nodded and the two left together.

 

* * *

 

“The press conference was a mistake,” Reid snapped, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. Elle examined him carefully, noting his shaking hands and a look about his mouth she recognised. Had he been throwing up? _When?_ She didn’t remember him leaving the room. She’d never known him to sweat excessively before either, but his hair was sticking to a fine sheen of it on his neck. She wanted to lean over and run the back of her hand across his forehead, but she didn’t feel comfortable touching him knowing how he felt about physical contact. She was willing to bet that if did, he’d be warm to the touch. Yet, despite this, his coat was still firmly on and he was shivering.

Now was not a good time for him to be ill. No wonder he was losing it.

“Are you saying that because you believe it was a mistake, or because you’re angry with Rossi and lashing out?” she asked him pertly. Hey, she’d never pretended to be subtle about these things.

“I’m not lashing out,” he responded, shooting a strange glance at her. “I’m not a child throwing a tantrum. It was a mistake; the unsub is going to retaliate.”

“Then perhaps don’t act like a child and you won’t be treated like one,” she said, acutely aware of the slight scolding tone to her voice. He was _exactly_ like a child throwing a tantrum, and what was worse, she could tell he knew it too. “You’re acting out of character. If you’re sick, you need to step back and let more capable…”

“Don’t pretend you know me,” he hissed. “How the hell would you know what’s out of character for me?”

“Implying that Rossi is an idiot isn’t out of character?” she snapped back, finally rising to his bait. Anger was good, it shook her out of this damned exhaustion that was settling in her limbs. “Or do you genuinely believe that you’re the only one who can solve this case because you’re _oh_ so much smarter than the rest of us _lesser_ intellects?”

He pulled the car over with a savage jerk of the wheel, unbuckling his seatbelt with clipped, furious movements. She hadn’t even noticed they were at her house, too intent upon striking back at him. “Don’t bother,” she said angrily as he went to open the door. “I have a rule against arrogant, pig-headed males in my home. I’ll drive myself back to work.” Further proof that he was sick, the rational part of her mind pointed out as she stormed out the car and across the grass. Reid in his right mind would have never listened to her; he knew she was impulsive and way too hasty, he’d have gotten right out that car and just sulked at her from inside her house…

Damn. Now she felt bad.

She hesitated at the door, sensing she’d mis-stepped and contemplating turning and calling him in, but the sound of the car pulling away ended that thought. She went inside without looking back. Dropping her badge and weapon on the coffee table, she slumped onto her couch and closed her eyes, the exhaustion back with a vengeance. She should call Reid and tell him to come back, he shouldn’t be alone… unsub aside, if he was really sick and he collapsed alone in his apartment, it would be hours before anyone came looking.

But when she opened her eyes, there was a man standing over her.

“There are rules for a reason!” he snarled, and her world dissolved into pain.


	6. Something

Reid pulled over and knocked his head repeatedly against the wheel, cussing silently at himself, at the world, at Elle, at the unsub, at the fucking _need_ that clawed at his insides and sent his mind spiralling uselessly. A wave of nausea hit and he shoved the door open, hanging out the car and retching. The ground wavered as his head swam and he pressed his forehead against the cool metal of the car’s body. He shouldn’t have left Elle’s house. He shouldn’t have shouted at Rossi. He shouldn’t… shouldn’t have chosen now to get clean.

He hadn’t lied to Emily; he _was_ getting clean. He’d shown her everywhere ( _almost)_ he’d hidden his stash, watched her tip the lot down his bathroom sink. He’d given her his word that he would go to her if he needed help. He hadn’t been using regularly, the withdrawal wouldn’t be long, wouldn’t kill him. So, what was the harm of one more dose?

Just enough to get his brain on track. Just enough to get him back on the case. He’d solve this, then he’d do it. Then he’d stop.

Yeah. That was reasonable, that was logical, and he _wanted_ to believe it.

A small part of him pointed out that he was rationalizing, that he was skirting the border of addiction again and justifying getting high when there were other options.

_It’s not like it’s a surprise,_ he thought bitterly, spitting to clear his mouth out and sitting back in the car. Subconsciously, he didn’t want to be clean. If he did, he’d have told Emily about the vials tucked into a tear in the backseat of his car. Or the ones in the bottom of the potted plant he had sitting on his bedroom window. Or the number he had programmed into his phone under ‘Dry cleaning.’

He had to go back. He shouldn’t have left Elle alone.

Pulling out his cell, he checked the time. It had only been twenty minutes; Elle might still be awake. And if she wasn’t, he could park out the front and sleep in the car _(and have a little, just a little, she wouldn’t notice)_. At least he’d be close by then.

He considered using the lock-picking skills Ethan had spent hours drilling into him and letting himself in if she didn’t answer, but likely that would end with Elle shooting him. Then realizing who he was, and probably shooting him again.

He’d screwed up by leaving, time to fix it. Jogging across the lawn to her front door, the pain in his head receded, taking with it the cravings. He’d done the right thing, he hadn’t relapsed. It had just been the withdrawal talking, he could take some kind of satisfaction from not giving in to that.

Yet.

Elle wasn’t answering. She must have been exhausted enough to fall straight asleep. He stepped off the porch, striding towards the car with his hands deep in his coat pockets.

Options: go back to work, tell them he fucked up, probably best; wait here until she woke up, apologise endlessly ( _wait in the car, in the car with your weakness_ ), second-best; go home. Home with the walls closing in on him and every empty space echoing with his fuck-ups. Worse.

Or one more that didn’t end with him getting fired by Rossi or shooting up.

Steps slowing, he considered. What was a bullet or two between friends? He bit at the cuff of his coat, loosening the thread that held the cuff together and slipping out the two picks he kept there. He’d buy her a book or something later to make up for it. The door opened easily under his lock-picks and he stepped in, pasting a sheepish grin on his face in case Elle was standing there with her finger on the trigger. “Elle? I’m sorry for being a jerk—”

His vision imploded into starbursts of pain, staggering sideways under the force of the blow, skull reverberating with pain. He hit the ground, reacting barely quick enough to put one hand under him and roll himself sideways to avoid a second strike and rolled into something wet and sticky. For a moment, his vision cleared and focused on Elle laying in a pool of her own blood, eyes open and blank. Scuttling up, his back braced against her, he pulled his gun and aimed at the assailant’s retreating back, firing twice at the two, now four, now two wavering figures in his eyesight and missing both times.

There was blood in his eyes and covering his side and arm, and he was about thirty seconds away from losing consciousness. Pulling out his cell with fumbling fingers, he made a choice and pressed down on the speed dial, dropping it as he struggled to pull his coat off. Twenty seconds. _Fifteen_. He couldn’t get the coat off, fingers weakening, mind fracturing, pain.

And then

finally

coat wadded up and pressed it against the hole in Elle’s stomach weakly

_You’re passing out now, Reid. There you go._

_Not like that. Don’t go sideways. Forward. Lay forward._

_Use your own weight to apply pressure._

_She’ll die if you don’t._

“Reid? Reid?” Rossi’s voice.

“Rules,” Reid said groggily, the words dancing in the air in front of him in dripping red, and passed out.

 

* * *

 

Elle was pale and tiny in the hospital bed, swallowed by the machines keeping her alive. Emily watched her through the viewing window with her heart in her throat. That could have been any one of them. Could be any one of them. One of these days, it could be her laying in a hospital bed and running out of second chances.

“We had a fight and I drove away,” said a miserable voice behind her. Reid, back from getting his head scanned to check for fractures. She turned to face him, studying the careful line of stitches that disappeared into his hairline. An inch down, he’d have been blinded. Just a little bit harder, and he wouldn’t have had to worry anymore about being the smartest guy in the room all the time. If they’d been any longer in reaching him, he’d be on a cold table three floors down instead of being alive to know he’d fucked up, and with Elle next to him. Two more pictures for the wall.

“You went back,” she settled for saying. She could afford to be placating, she was sure Rossi would pick up her slack and rip into Reid for his mistake. She couldn’t see the point. As far as mistakes go, it would be one that he would never make again.

Besides, she couldn’t be mad at him, not when barely ten hours ago she’d run into Elle’s house at Rossi’s heels and found them both lying there surrounded by so much blood she’d thought for sure that they were dead. In the split second between walking into that hellhole and Rossi leaning down to check their pulses, she had already considered a world without them in it.

If what she had felt at that moment was one iota of what Reid went through every day after the death of Ethan, then suddenly his relapse made a lot more sense. She’d never tell him that though.

“It doesn’t matter. What if I hadn’t? Do you know how long it would have taken her to bleed out on that floor? Because I do. I can tell you the exact timeframe it would have taken her to die, all because I couldn’t keep my head together!” Reid seemed determined to wallow in guilt, piling this on top of all his other past failures, real and imagined.

“But you did. You think anyone is going to be mad at you for what you didn’t do? Reid, you got pistol-whipped with the butt of her gun hard enough to almost fracture your skull and still stayed conscious long enough to save her life! She’s not going to care you had a fight when she wakes up; she’s going to care that you were there when she needed you to be.”

“When she wakes up? She might not.”

She would. The BAU couldn’t bury another member. “She will. Come on, you need to go home and rest.”

He turned, expression reminiscent of a dog that had just been kicked. “What? I can’t go home, we need to catch this guy! He shot Elle!”

Of course Reid fixated on the damage done to Elle and not to himself. “Yeah, well, you have a head injury. I’m sure that big brain of yours knows what can happen to head injuries if you push yourself. You need to rest, not work through a serious concussion.”

“It’s fine, I’m fine—”

“If you think I’m actually going to believe that, he must have hit you harder than I thought.”

Reid glared at her mulishly. “I am a doctor, you know.”

She smiled sweetly at him and picked up his bag, leading the way to the exit. She’d dealt with teenage Reid; adult Reid had no chance of talking her out of this. He was going back to her place and sleeping. That was the plan anyway, until they actually got back to her place.

“There’s something on your door,” he said, voice calm but weapon already in hand. She waved him back, earning a scowl as he ignored her and took point anyway. Stubborn idiot wasn’t about to let her go first in case it was a trap. Stubborn idiot was probably going to get himself _shot_ to add to the concussion. Maybe he had a crush on a nurse or something.

He turned and there was a card in his hand, one side showing a rustic old house in a gloomy night setting. “It’s an address,” Reid said unnecessarily, holding the postcard up to show her. “It’s only ten miles from here.”

Fat chance she had of leaving him here now, she knew that look in his eye. “Call Rossi while I drive,” she instructed him, holstering her weapon and sprinting down the hall with him at her heels.

 

* * *

 

To say he was unhappy to see Reid, stitches so fresh they still gleamed with the antiseptic, was an understatement. But he was an extra pair of eyes and a brain that Rossi would be stupid to walk into a possible hostage situation without. “You stay behind me at all times or I’ll have you out on your ass,” Rossi warned the younger agent, no trace of his usual geniality. Reid nodded, eyes shadowed, clearly expecting harsher words.

Now wasn’t the time to talk about Elle or about Reid’s conduct; that was a conversation for a later time, behind closed doors. Hotch and Garcia were at the hospital with Elle, they’d let them know straight away if anything changed with her condition. Morgan was two steps behind them as they planned their entry, his dark gaze locked on Reid and borrowed FBI vest tight against his chest. They could use him, and he was a damn good cop. Rossi would just deal with the fallout from this decision later. “Don’t get hurt,” he warned him. “I don’t want to deal with the paperwork nightmare that will bring with it.”

Then they were inside and up the stairs and somehow Reid was in the lead, was the first one to find Garner. There was a single moment when Rossi could have stepped in and pulled Reid out of there, taken over, but he had faith in his team. He’d never lost faith in them before, and he wouldn’t do it now. Even with Reid currently… well, even with Reid.

Reid stiffened in the hallway, three arm lengths in front of them and Rossi could see the stress on Morgan’s face as the agent moved further out of their quick reach. “Rossi, Morgan, I think it would be safer if you guys waited downstairs,” he said suddenly, forcefully, and Rossi had heard that tone of voice before, right before Reid took a bullet for them.

“What? No, we’re not leaving!” Morgan exclaimed, turning his head to look at Rossi with a horrified expression. “What’s going on?” he mouthed.

Reid was out of time to do this alone. Rossi stepped out, ready to take out Garner, but the other agent was already turning and sprinting back towards them. “Bomb!” he shouted, seconds before the room exploded.

 

* * *

 

They made it out, barely, and Morgan was still shaking from that split second when the force of the explosion had almost lifted him off his feet. “Wait!” Reid shouted suddenly, pulling himself out of Morgan’s grip and looking about, wild-eyed. “Rebecca is still here!”

There was blood leaking again from the stitches on his head, his clothes still smouldering, and Morgan shot a concerned look at Rossi. “We can’t go back in there, kid. The whole place could come down.”

There was a moment where Reid might have agreed and accepted that, before the spectre of Elle’s injury rose before them. Reid had already left one woman behind today; he wasn’t about to do it again. Morgan wasn’t quick enough to grab him before his friend turned and bolted back into the inferno, ignoring Rossi’s furious bellowing and Morgan’s own shouting.

Goddamnit. If they got out of here alive, he was making Reid a leash and stapling it to Rossi’s forehead. At least then they could have some semblance of control over his actions. Morgan took a moment to swear as loudly and imaginatively as he could, before pulling his shirt over his mouth and following Reid into the wall of heat.

“She’s in the basement!” Reid shouted back over the sound of the house’s structure failing, and Morgan had no choice but to stick as close as he could to Reid’s back and hope that the house held up long enough to save Rebecca and themselves.

She was looking through the bars in her door with fear in her expression, and the instant Morgan saw her eyes lock on his, he knew they’d had no choice but to come in and get her.

“Door’s locked,” choked Reid, gasping through the acrid smoke, and Morgan took a second to call out to her to get out of the way before shouldering his way through the weakened wood.

“There’s chains,” Rebecca cried, holding one of them up to show them as they burst in. “He has me chained to the bed!”

“I have a key,” Rossi said grimly, appearing out of the smoke with a wood axe and slamming it down on the chain twice, smashing clean through the links. “Now out, out! Run!”

They made it out with minutes to spare before the house gave up its doomed battle with the flames and collapsed into rubble. Morgan carried the shaking girl over to the paramedics, JJ there to hold her hand while they stabilized her.

“Uh oh,” Emily murmured suddenly, appearing at his elbow and looking past him. Morgan turned, groaning when he saw Reid cornered against another ambulance, oxygen mask on his face and an infuriated Rossi in front of him.

Emily dodged past Morgan, clearly intent upon refereeing, but before they could get over there, Rossi had launched into a blistering tirade. “Do you have a goddamn death wish?” he roared, angrier than any of them had ever seen him. Emily froze. Not even _she_ was game enough to get in on this. Reid didn’t answer, just stared back like a deer caught in headlights. “Is that what this is? Is this your penance for what happened to Elle? Getting yourself killed as well?”

Reid lowered the mask, face pale under the blood and soot streaked across it. “Rossi, I—”

“You, what? You didn’t think? Damn fucking right you didn’t think! When you put yourself in danger, you put us all in danger!” He stopped and rocked back, breathing heavily to try and calm down. When he spoke again, his tone was deadly. “Fine. _Fine._ If you’re so intent upon this, tell me one thing. When you succeed in finding what you’re searching so desperately for, would you like a grave next to Ethan?” Reid shuddered and Morgan saw him turn grey as he sunk back into the ambulance, breath rasping. He didn’t answer. Rossi turned on his heel and strode away. “Consider yourself suspended, Dr. Reid, pending a full psych evaluation. I won’t bury another friend.”

 

* * *

 

JJ was very firmly not thinking about Elle fighting for her life, or Spence fighting for his sanity. Instead, she determinedly soaped up the sponge and scrubbed it across the wall, hissing through her teeth in irritation as the blood smeared across the paintwork.

“We can repaint,” Hotch said softly from his spot on his knees, scrubbing at the floor. “It’d probably be better to paint over it anyway.” JJ stepped back and examined Elle’s wall, the words written by Garner in her colleague’s blood still vivid slashes against the pearl grey colour scheme.  

“Lucky we brought this then,” said a grim voice from the doorway, and JJ turned to find Rossi standing there, paint cans in hand. “Come on,” Rossi continued. “Let’s make it so it looks like nothing ever happened.”

Rossi took a deep breath and met JJ’s gaze evenly, still raw from his very public confrontation with Reid earlier. “If only everything was so easy to fix,” she said, and he nodded sadly.


	7. Turning

When Morgan got the phone call, everything stopped. His feelings weren’t as easy to quantify as they should have been. Reid’s grief was easy; he’d lost a person he’d treasured. The rest of the team was frightened because they’d almost lost Elle. The demands of leading a broken team weighed on Rossi, as he tried to pick up the pieces while still grieving the loss of six agents. Those emotions all made sense, were expected. Morgan didn’t know how to feel when his boss called him to inform him that while he was on leave, Arlo had been shot and killed in a drug deal gone wrong. Unspoken was whether or not he was stopping the deal, or a part of it. Morgan didn’t ask. He didn’t need to know. All he knew was his partner was dead and cold, a man he didn’t like or respect, and he didn’t know why it left him so shaken.

He flew home without telling any of his old friends what had happened and spent the next two weeks in a haze of quiet faces over blue uniforms and a grieving widow who asked everyone what kind of a man her husband had been.

They all lied. In the end, it was the last thing they could give him.

Arlo was buried with honour, a true hero’s funeral. Just like Morgan’s dad had been. Just like the BAU’s lost agents had been. It made Morgan sick. When they called him up to present the eulogy, he turned and walked away. When he left his gun and badge on his boss’s desk, no one was surprised. The good never lasted, not here.

The only thing he took away from the career he’d worked so hard to succeed in was a great recommendation and a heart filled with bitterness. No one was surprised, least of all himself, when he spent part of his last pay-cheque on as much alcohol as he could justify buying and went home to forget everything.

 

* * *

 

“Where’s Reid?” Elle’s eyes were sharp, her face tense. JJ shifted uncomfortably in the hard-backed hospital chair, hoping that Emily would take over here, unwilling to tell Elle about Reid’s blow up and subsequent suspension. He’d only been suspended for two weeks so far but Rossi had spent the entire time lurking about the BAU with a face like thunderclouds had settled permanently on his head and had made three new recruits cry with his newfound temper. Without Reid in the bullpen, the whole place had taken on a sort of gloomy air. Without Elle there, Emily was starting to look pretty damn lonely at her single occupied desk.

“Oh, you know Reid. He’s probably doing all your paperwork so you don’t come back to a towering pile,” Emily stuttered out. JJ groaned. She didn’t know where the brilliant liar of their college years had gone, but along the way Emily appeared to have lost the knack. Now they were going to have to do Elle’s paperwork so she didn’t come back and get suspicious that it wasn’t done. And they were going to have to somehow make it look like Reid’s chicken-scratch handwriting, something that JJ wasn’t quite sure she was capable of without breaking a couple of fingers.

“The nurses said he was hurt,” Elle continued with a narrowed glare at Emily, sensing the lie. “He does know I’m not mad at him, doesn’t he? I mean, the kid _did_ save my life.”

“Oh, he knows,” JJ reassured her. “He’s just… busy. Doing things.”

Garcia was fiddling with the remote, determinedly ignoring the stifled conversation behind her. Elle turned an accusing stare on her, honing in straight for their weakest link. “Penelope? Is that true?”

Garcia shot them a mournful expression, turning slowly to face the angry woman in the hospital bed. “Of course. Of course it’s true. They wouldn’t lie to you, not to your face anyway, would you guys? Reid’s just got lots of… visiting. Yeah, visiting. His… friends.”

Elle blinked slowly, taking in Garcia’s stuttering statements. “His… friends? Who are mostly all here?”

Garcia froze like a rabbit hunted by foxes. “Yes. He would be here. Visiting us, his friends. But he’s… sick. Horribly sick. Like, an oozing kind of sick, wow, you really don’t want to be near him right now. You know when you sneeze and it comes out all green and gunky, well that’s him but from _everywhere_.” Emily groaned and dropped her head into her arms. They should have never brought Garcia, she couldn’t lie for peanuts. It’s not like Elle would have noticed just _one_ more person avoiding her hospital room, what with Reid having locked himself in his apartment, and Rossi eluding all social contact that didn’t involve shouting.

It was hard to believe that this time two weeks ago, they’d been happily in Jamaica and everything had seemed like it was going to work out just fine.

“Right,” Elle said slowly, sitting upright stiffly. “I’m going to ignore the fucking awful attempt at hiding something from me that you lot just tried and get straight to the guts of this. Reid’s not here, you don’t want me to notice that Reid’s not here. Which means I’m going to be _really_ mad about why he’s not here. Now, since our genius is actually a guilty little kid with his hand eternally in the cookie jar at heart, my automatic assumption is that he blames himself for me getting hurt and is hiding away to brood. But you guys would tell me if that was it, since I’d be the only one who could drag him out of it.”

She stopped and lanced them all with a piercing glare that had JJ and Garcia shrinking back. Emily met it calmly, but her gut coiled unpleasantly. _No wonder no one likes profilers,_ she thought offhand. If this was how they looked to other people, like they knew everything about them at a glance, it was understandable.

Elle continued, her voice low and dangerous. “Rossi’s not here either, and since he’s basically a soccer mom with hairy face, I can only assume he had something to do with it, too and has joined Reid in the narcissistic brooding. He’s not hurt, or Garcia would be crying. He’s not angry at me or Emily, you’d have already kicked his ass into being sensible again. And he’s not in a depressed funk, or JJ would be there holding his hand and singing lullabies to him. Which means you guys don’t know how he is, but you _do_ know why…”

JJ shifted, frowning at the implications behind Elle’s words. “Elle, it’s not that simple, we’re just giving him some space…”

“Because he did something fucking stupid and dangerous with no regard for his own safety and got himself suspended?” Elle said bitingly, barely waiting for a response before launching into a furious outburst in Spanish. Emily raised her eyebrows, deciding not to translate since most of the contents of Elle’s rant could be summed up with an impressive collection of synonyms for ‘fucking idiot,’ and waited her out. She finally finished, looking pale and in pain: “I told him to leave, this is on me, not him. What did he do?”

“Ran into a building that was on fire to save a girl,” Garcia said quickly, tripping over her words in her haste to fill Elle in. Clearly her response to being busted in a lie was to tell the truth as quickly and in as much detail as possible to make up for it.

Elle breathed in slowly, clearly trying to calm herself down. “And Rossi _does_ know that Reid would have done that anyway, right? This is the kid that took his vest off in a train with an unsub having a psychotic break without even hesitating. He’s a goddamn panda—he has no sense of self-preservation. I’ve seen him step off the top of staircases without even realizing they’re there; his brain is too full of math for instincts.”

“I don’t think Rossi was thinking all that clearly at the time,” Emily said softly, thinking back to the grey tinge to Rossi’s face as he’d watched Reid wheeze into the oxygen mask. “I think he was a little preoccupied with the last time his team went into a building rigged to blow, and how that ended…”

They fell silent, horrified at the realization that maybe Reid hadn’t been the only one to lose his head a little that day. “Oh my god, I didn’t even think of that…” JJ whispered. “Do you think Rossi’s ok?”

Elle snorted. “I think Rossi has Hotch to catch him when he falls. You guys are here, who's catching Reid?”

 

* * *

 

Reid was pretty sure that if one more of his teammates tried to bash their way through his door, he was going to go mad. Surely, they’d have worked out he had no intention upon answering after the first dozen times they’d tried. Each.

“I’m not leaving,” came the slurred voice from the other side of the door. “I will sleep right here on your doorstep, Pretty Boy.”

Wait, Morgan? What on earth was Morgan doing back in town?

Reid hissed, dropping his feet off the couch and standing, shuffling over to the door and pulling it open with his best ‘not happy with this’ face. He found himself face to face with a bleary-eyed Derek Morgan, clearly on the wrong side of a weeklong bender and looking as green as it was possible for him to look. “Err… are you okay?” Reid settled for asking, since Morgan was clearly not here to enquire about his welfare. Which was a nice change.

“I’m drunk,” Morgan said mournfully and unhelpfully, tilting his head to examine Reid’s pyjamas and almost tipping sideways into the doorframe as his equilibrium failed to adjust. “I’m drunk, and I lost my bags somewhere, probably in the taxi, and I think I’m going to puke on you, probably.”

Reid stepped aside without another word, letting Morgan stagger past him and meander in the vague direction of his bathroom. “First door on the left,” he directed him, pushing his drunken friend towards it and heading to the kitchen for Tylenol and water. The merry sounds of Morgan vomiting floated up the hall and Reid suppressed a shudder. Reaching for the phonebook, he quickly flipped through until he reached the taxi cab’s number, dialling and reaching for a pen. Tracking down Morgan’s luggage would be some respite from the tedium of his suspension, anyway.

Three hours later, Morgan was finally starting to sober up, and he’d finally made headway with the taxi company. “They found your stuff,” he told his friend sternly. “They’re bringing it by. You overpaid the driver, by the way. He seemed very keen to see you again.”

Morgan took another careful sip of the water Reid had foisted on him, pressing the cool glass against his cheek. “At least someone is having a good week then. Do you sleep on your couch?”

Reid blinked, slightly thrown by the sudden change of subject. “Mostly. My room is… dark. I like it better out here.”

“Where’s your TV?”

Reid examined him suspiciously, starting to see an ulterior motive emerging. “In my room.”

Morgan raised his head and grinned at him, the first familiar expression he’d worn since first stumbling into the apartment. “Dibs on your bed then.”

Reid spluttered. “You can’t stay here! Why can’t you stay with Rossi again? Why are you even _here_?” He paused, anger slowly building. “Did Emily put you up to this? Are you babysitting me?”

“Did Emily put me up to showing up blind drunk, unemployed and homeless on your doorstep, without my luggage?” Morgan said slowly and carefully with one eyebrow raised. Reid wasn’t quite sure which part of that sentence to tackle first. “Not that you don’t look like you need babysitting at the moment… and a shower.” He stopped and seemed to focus on Reid properly for the first time. “And a shave. Jesus Reid, I didn’t even know you _could_ grow facial hair.”

Reid ran a hand over his chin, flinching at the unpleasant scratchiness of it. Yeah, so maybe he’d been a little… preoccupied. But he didn’t really think his problems were all that pressing at the moment. “What happened?” he said, leaning over and flicking on the kettle. It seemed like a coffee kind of conversation.

“You don’t have anything to remember Coiro by in here,” Morgan stated bluntly. “Why?”

Swallowing tightly, Reid decided that honestly was probably the only option here. “Because I don’t need visual reminders. I can’t forget, even if I wanted to.”

“Because it hurts?”

Reid nodded numbly, seeing for the first time a familiar kind of pain in Morgan’s eyes. He’d lost someone, recently. Really recently, judging by the state of him. “Who?”

“My partner,” his friend replied. “I hated the guy. He was a dirty cop, abrasive. The kind of cop who gives the rest of us bad names. But it still… it still hurts. I spent two weeks off my face, quit my job and handed in the keys to my apartment. I can’t handle the reminders of him. Figured out of everyone, you’d understand that.”

Reid did. “I get the shower first in the mornings,” he warned him.

Morgan laughed darkly. “As long as that’s a promise that you’re actually going to shower. Come on, you’re so determined to convince us all you can look after yourself, but you’re falling apart.”

“I know.” There wasn’t really anything he could say to defend himself. At least he was still sober, but Morgan didn’t need to share in that particular victory.

“Do you remember when we met?” Morgan said suddenly, draining his glass. “It was all so much easier back then…”

Reid thought of Sommets and Emily buying drugs to prove a point, Morgan depressed and lost. “I don’t think it’s even been easy,” he responded honestly.


	8. Concessions

Rossi grunted as he shifted the heavy boxes, absently searching for the old case file he knew was down here somewhere. The air was heavy with dust, and the sound of the old file clerk wheezing as she puttered about echoed hollowly around the cramped aisles. He’d been at the FBI for eight years now, and it never ceased to amaze him that every one of these boxes and files contained part of someone’s life. Every single paper in here was some crime, some wrongdoing that one human being had done to another. He shoved one box aside and the flashlight held between his teeth fell onto a name that was familiar enough to send a jolt of shock curving down his spine. He’d forgotten what else was down here.

Some of the boxes were the people who hunted those crimes.

> _Coiro, E. DOD 2008. SA. GIDEON, J. BAU_

Rossi hesitated before sliding the box towards him and slipping off the lid.

 

* * *

 

“Rossi?” JJ knocked nervously on the door, tentative about disturbing her boss when he was so clearly deep in thought. Rossi didn’t seem to hear her for a moment, sitting stiffly in his chair with his attention solely focused on something held in his hands.

“JJ,” he said finally, looking up at her with eyes that were a million miles away. JJ stepped into the room, noting the dust on the otherwise spotless material of his suit jacket. “How can I help you?”

Whatever she’d been about to say slipped her mind as he turned to face her and his hands came into view. “What’s that?” she asked, craning her neck slightly to see. He held up a battered wallet and slid it across the desk to her wordlessly. She reached out and took it, letting the well-worn leather fall open to reveal the contents. Bank cards, library card, bus stub, a half-used coffee card from the local café. All the signs of a life in the middle of being lived.

A photo of two young men grinning widely at the camera, arms around their shoulders. “Oh,” was all she could say as she looked down at a Reid she’d never known looking happier than she’d ever seen him. “I knew they were close but…”

Picture in wallet close? That was a whole level of intimate she’d missed.

They’d all missed.

“Ethan’s parents were dead. He roomed with Reid during their academy days and they ended up friends. Reid was all Coiro had. An exceptional agent, he actually ranked higher than Reid.”

JJ laughed quickly and the sound lingered, painfully out of place. “How is that possible?”

Rossi smiled, but there was a moroseness to his expression. “Reid failed every physical exam they threw at him. They had to make exceptions for him at Gideon’s request. Everyone thought he’d get himself killed as soon as he was put in the field.”

She looked down at the picture and her errand became clear again. “What happened to him?”

Rossi looked confused. “To Coiro?”

“To Reid.” The man in the photo was happy, smiling, healthy. This was before he’d dropped all contact with them, before he’d vanished off the face of the earth to emerge years later as a shallow copy. Something had to have happened to him to cause that.

Rossi’s gaze scanned her slowly, contemplating. “JJ, don’t you think you should be asking him that question?”

“He won’t tell me. He won’t tell any of us. Prentiss knows something, but she won’t say. She and Reid have always been thick as thieves. She won’t betray his confidence, even to help him. Something happened to him just after he joined the FBI, something that broke him, and you know what it is. If we want him back, you have to tell us… Coiro might have helped him then, but he’s not here anymore. Reid needs us.”

Rossi took the wallet back and fiddled with it, face grim. “A Georgia case. But you need to decide whether this is something you need to see… for your sake, as well as Reid’s.”

JJ hesitated, then nodded firmly. “I do. What case?”

“Tobias Hankel.”

 

* * *

 

The knock at his door was expected, but his heart still raced in his chest when he heard it. Taking a moment to straighten his tie, he opened the door and tried to smile cheerily at his soon-to-be-ex-wife and son.

“Aaron,” Haley said stiffly, standing back from the doorway holding Jack’s bag.

“Dad!” Jack yelled, much more excited, throwing himself into Hotch’s torso and knocking the breath out of him as his head collided with his dad’s ribcage.

“Hi, Jack. I’ve missed you,” he said to his son, hugging him close. “Haley, how are you?”

She ignored his question, just handed him Jack’s bag and looked off to the side, nervously biting at her lip. “Here. I have these for you. Please… please don’t be difficult, Aaron.” She handed him a manila folder. As soon as he saw it, the frantic beating of his heart slowed to a dull rhythm, disappointment and nausea fighting for control over his body. Divorce papers.

“Are you sure?” he asked her. She just nodded, not meeting his eyes as she said goodbye to Jack.

“Have fun with your dad and Uncle Dave,” she told their son. “Don’t let them lead you astray.”

“I’m always good, Mom,” Jack complained, pulling away from her hand scrubbing at a spot on his face. “Promise. See you in two weeks.”

She left without looking back, shoulders stiff and walk tense. Hotch watched her go, then turned to his son. “Want to see Uncle Dave’s video game collection?”

The day went by fairly quickly, with Jack trying to teach Hotch how to shoot zombies on a game while Hotch failed to reach the end of even level one. “I’m finding it hard to believe you even know how to shoot a gun, Dad,” Jack grumbled as a zombie pounced on him and began clawing at his gut as Hotch ran in circles, completely lost and repeatedly turning his flashlight on and off instead of firing his weapon.

“Real guns have one trigger, not four,” Hotch replied shortly, accidently dropping a Molotov and setting himself on fire, to Jack’s chagrin.

“How about I take over, before my Xbox red rings from sheer ineptitude,” a voice cut in from the doorway, tone drily amused. Rossi stepped over and took the controller from Hotch’s grateful hands.

“Thank god,” Hotch and Jack both muttered at the same time, sheepishly shooting grins at each other when they realized what they’d done. Hotch laughed, getting up and dusting off his pants as the two launched the game again, getting further in ten minutes then Hotch had managed in five hours.

“I’ll just go cook dinner then, while you boys play,” he said sarcastically, their attention completely taken by the TV as Rossi crept up on a weeping zombie, shotgun in hand.

“Thanks, Mom,” Rossi said, winking at him.

He was stirring the pot when soft footsteps came into the kitchen behind him. “Are we just not going to mention these?” He turned to find Rossi holding the papers. “Or do you want to talk?”

Hotch turned back to the pasta, jabbing the spoon angrily into the water and flinching as hot water splattered his hand. “Nothing to talk about. She wants me to sign them, no contest. Just simple and easy. Ten years gone.”

A hand touched his arm, a rare sign of open support. “Just because your marriage is over it doesn’t mean your life is.”

Hotch took a calming breath. Rossi was right. Just because he’d somehow managed to convince himself that maybe there was hope… besides, he was putting his life back together. He was starting at the academy soon, he’d reconnected with old friends, things could be good. He’d be alone, but they could still be good.

“How’s Reid?” he asked, changing the subject away from the pain of his failed marriage. Rossi looked startled and then confused in quick succession.

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen him,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “He’s on suspension, I told you that.”

Hotch stopped and stared at his friend incredulously. “Still? Rossi, it’s been over three weeks. Shouldn’t you be reinstating him by now? Did he fail his psych eval?”

Rossi sat down heavily and examined the wood grain of his table. “I, err… I haven’t organized it yet. I haven’t gotten around to it. We’ve been busy.”

Waiting a moment to see if Rossi was going to follow up on this startling declaration, Hotch turned the heat down on the stovetop and took a seat next to his friend. “Too busy to reinstate the only agent you have that’s been in the BAU longer than six months?” he asked cautiously. “How does Strauss feel about you having an entirely green team in the field without backup because you’re ‘too busy’?”

His friend was still avoiding his gaze, running his fingers gently along the line of the table evasively. “Aaron, don’t…”

“Is this because he was rude to you?” Hotch asked, refusing to back down. “I never took you to be childish, Dave. Or petty.” He stopped, eyes raking his friend’s hunched over posture and the guilt that lined him. “Or maybe it’s because he scared the shit out of you.”

Rossi twitched and took a shuddering breath, finally looking up at him. “Are you sure you weren’t a profiler in a past life?” he questioned shortly, only half joking. “Dammit, Aaron, when he went into that building, I couldn’t think. My whole career is based around me being able to think quickly and react in a crisis, but since Boston I’m crippled by indecision. I can’t be Gideon. I can’t make a choice that leads to another funeral. I can’t.”

“Greenaway wasn’t your fault,” Hotch said quietly. “And Reid did what Reid does, you know that better than any of us.”

Rossi’s palm slapped the table, the noise making Hotch’s hands jump reflectively. “I know that! I know that he’s always going to make the choice that leads to saving someone, no matter the cost to himself! Don’t you get it, Hotch?” Rossi was breathing heavily, eyes wild. “He’s out of the field, he’s safe. I can’t handle them not being safe anymore. I just… I just can’t. Every time he puts himself in danger, all I can see is this fifteen-year-old kid standing at a party and trying to tell us that he’s old enough to look after himself.”

Hotch put his hand on Rossi’s shoulder, his turn to be the calm one. “You need to talk to him, Rossi. Otherwise this is going to destroy you.”

Rossi stared at him for the longest time, frozen.

Finally, he nodded.

 

* * *

 

Elle followed JJ into Garcia’s room, hands sweating nervously at what they were about to ask. Garcia was deep in conversation with Prentiss as they walked in, turning to smile brightly at them. “Hello, my sweets!” she greeted them, bracelets jingling together as she waved. “How can I be of service to you today?”

JJ was colder than Elle had ever seen her, determined to see this through. “We need to see the videos of what happened in Georgia.”

Elle’s suspicion that Garcia didn’t know anything about Georgia, sure that the woman would never have hidden something like that from her friends, was shattered as Garcia paled. “Why? Why on earth would you need to see that, JJ it’s… not good. It’s the opposite of good, I can’t, you… it’s awful.”

“What videos from Georgia?” Prentiss asked slowly, standing up from her perch on the desk. “There’s videos of Georgia? I only saw the reports.”

“We need to know what happened to Reid,” JJ told Garcia firmly. “We’re part of his team now, which means we need to know how to help him.”

Garcia looked from one face to the other, seeing no help available to her in that room. All three of them were ranged against her and set in their decision to view the footage. “Alright. Fine. But I won’t watch it again. I won’t.” She tapped furiously at her keyboard, every key slamming home with the force she was using. “Don’t watch this and then treat him like a victim. He doesn’t need your pity.”

She called up a file and stood, walking out without looking back. The three of them were silent for a moment, each one unwilling to be the one to press that button and play the video. Emily bit at her lip, stepping towards the computer slightly. Elle watched her with bated breath, vividly aware that out of all of them, Prentiss was the only one who really had any idea of what had happened that day.

“Do it,” JJ said gently, and Prentiss hit the play button.

Elle’s guts turned to water as the screen changed to show Reid, bruised and bleeding and bound to a chair with his eyes wide and lost. “Choose one to die,” grated an unfamiliar voice, and they all saw Reid’s face slacken with shock.

JJ was shaking by the end of the second video.

By the end of the third, Prentiss had turned away, face green.

Reid died in front of them and as his body fell still, Elle could hear someone crying. She didn’t look away from the screen to check who it was, terrified by the possibility it could be her.

They’d been ready for anything. Anything except this.

 

* * *

 

Reid opened the door to Rossi standing on his doorstep looking anxious. “Rossi!” he said, startled, hearing Morgan pause in his clattering about the kitchen, unashamedly listening to their conversation. “Why are you here?” He’d started to think that Rossi was just waiting for the right moment to fire him, with three weeks passing by without a word.

His boss handed him a sheaf of paperwork with a steady hand, his grim smile not reaching his eyes. “Your reinstatement. You’re required to complete your psych evaluation this Friday, and depending on the results, you’ll begin work again on Monday.”

Reid’s eyes darted over the papers, taking it in in seconds. “Thank you,” he replied stiffly, not entirely sure where to go from here. Should he apologise?

Rossi hesitated, then held his hand out again, a small slip of something held tightly between his fingers. “And I wanted to bring you this.”

Reid took it carefully, shuddering when he opened it to reveal him and Ethan during one of the academy bar crawls. He shoved it back, turning his head away and blinking furiously. How _dare_ Rossi spring that on him like this?

“No, take it,” Rossi insisted, stepping back and refusing the photo. “We both need to learn to face our pasts, without letting ourselves be consumed by them. And he doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.”

Reid looked at his boss and understood. That was as close to an apology as he was going to get, a concession to the past few months. And a warning.

From now on, they were all going to have to do better.


	9. Lost

Elle ran her fingers over the badge that she’d worked so hard to get, thinking back over everything it represented. Her team, all those long nights studying at the Academy, hard days of gruelling physical exercise. Hours spent practising her aim with her weapon, the camaraderie she had with the people of the FBI that she’d never, ever find elsewhere. There was something about placing your life in other’s hands daily that forged bonds stronger than any other.

The cases they’d done; the awful things they’d seen. People doing unthinkable things to other people, sometimes for no reason. Evil in human form. She would wake up at night with the victim’s names on her lips, sweat coating her skin no matter what the temperature was. She didn’t know how Reid managed it, her only saving grace was that she _could_ forget. Eventually. He never would.

Her stomach twinged, the slowly healing injury pulling at the skin around it. A vivid reminder of what the cost of this job would be on her. It wasn’t even just the injury or the violation that had come with it. There were things she’d seen since starting at the BAU that were just as horrifying as the victim’s bodies.

Rossi desperately trying to keep his team together, even as they crumbled around him.

Reid tied to that chair with a gun at his head, steadfastly refusing to choose a team member to die. Finally choosing Coiro. The barely restrained glint of panicked tears in his eyes as he’d done so.

The way JJ no longer walked casually out to her car at night, instead waiting until someone else was there to walk her out; checking over her shoulder every time she left the front door of the FBI.

The empty office that should have been Gideon’s. This job burned people up; it chewed them up and spit them out.

She ran her fingers one last time over her badge, feeling the warmth that her skin had left on it, and knocked on Rossi’s door sharply. There was no shame in this. She wasn’t going to wait until she was as broken as Gideon to walk away.

“Greenaway,” Rossi greeted her, smiling tiredly. He was going grey at thirty-six. A by-product of being the team’s one and only leader. Elle wondered absently when Strauss would get around to finding a senior agent to help bear the load. Rossi didn’t ask what she was doing there, his eyes danced over her badge and gun in her hands and he knew. “I can’t say this is a surprise, but you will be missed,” he told her. He wouldn’t try to talk her out of it, he knew. He of all people knew the costs of not knowing when to step back.

She needed to justify it anyway, especially since he was the man who’d given her the chance at her dream job. It wasn’t his fault the job had turned out to be such a… well, not a nightmare. But certainly more than she could handle. “In another world, maybe I stay,” she said softly, placing the badge and weapon on his desk and sliding them gently towards him. “Maybe this becomes my life and fulfils me. Or maybe it burns me out, and I lose it. Just like Gideon. But I don’t want to take that chance, and you don’t need another live wire on your team.”

He shook her hand, his palm warm and dry, and she realized with a pang that she was going to miss the people more than she would ever miss this job. “You were an asset to this team, and we will be less without you,” Rossi said, and she knew he was sincere. Rossi rarely talked out of his ass; it was his best quality.

“Good luck in your future, Dave.” The formality was gone, and they were now merely friends saying farewell. “I think maybe things will be better from now on.” Then, she was turning and walking out of the BAU for the last time, and she knew that the team would be devastated that she didn’t say goodbye to them.

But she never was one to hang around once she’d failed. Even if she’d failed for a good reason.

 

* * *

 

“Bullpen was getting kind of empty without you, kid,” Emily teased, dropping her butt onto his desk and stealing his pen. She always chose the most childish ways possible to ensure his full attention. He didn’t really mind.

“Who’d have known Elle would bail like that?” he commented, twisting his mouth slightly to try and hide the hurt in his expression. He knew she wasn’t fooled as her face softened. “Not that I blame her, but… she didn’t even say goodbye.”

“Sometimes that happens, Reid.” Emily clicked the end of the pen a few times absently, eyes distant. “Sometimes people just… go. They usually have good reasons.” She picked up a piece of paper and began writing on it intently, her eyes narrowed. Reid watched her for a moment before leaning over and examining what she was writing.

> _Rob Prentiss_
> 
> _Matthew Benton_
> 
> _Declan_
> 
> _Mary-Elle Harris_

“What are you doing?” he asked curiously as she scrawled the name _Elle Greenaway_ in her usual careful manner.

“Remembering the people from my past,” she replied, tapping the pen on the paper. “My dad. He was distant, but he was my dad. He taught me to ride a bike. Matt was my best friend. I miss him all the time, we haven’t spoken in years. Declan was… someone who died. Because I didn’t protect him enough. I can remember each and every one of them, without letting their loss destroy me.” The pen moved again. _Spencer Reid_. “You needed me and I wasn’t there,” she said, very, very quietly. “I’m sorry for that.”

She scrunched the paper up and lobbed it in the bin near his desk, dark eyes locked on his. “Is this some sort of self-help ritual?” he said, staring at it as it slowly unfolded. “You think I need help with my grief?”

Her eyebrows rose dangerously. “You just came off a three-week suspension for mouthing off to Rossi. And let’s not even get into the rest of it. Do you think you need help with your grief?”

Reid thought about that morning when he’d woken up and for the first time in months, hadn’t been instantly assailed with the knowledge of his loss. It was still there, he still missed his friend, but it was manageable. Last night he’d told Morgan a story about Ethan over dinner, and he’d laughed. They both had. “No,” he said carefully, honestly. “I think I’m okay.”

Emily was quiet for a moment before she smiled, brighter than he’d seen her since she’d started there. “You know, one of the regrets I couldn’t put behind me was that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most.”

“You couldn’t have been. You were busy.” One day, he knew she’d tell him where she’d been during those three years. Until then, he was fine with waiting.

“I know. But the fact is, you were hurt and alone, and I should have been there to help you through that. Maybe this wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been. But… I’m here now. And I’m not Elle, or Gideon. I’m not going anywhere.”

Reid touched her hand, squeezed it slightly in his. “Plans for tonight?” he asked.

She arched one eyebrow, suspicious of his intentions. Probably expecting him to invite her to another seven-hour film in a language he didn’t speak. She’d go though, he knew she would if he asked. “None yet. Why? Morgan finally driving you out of your home?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I just thought maybe if you weren’t busy… you could help me hang some pictures back up.”

The moment hung long between them, and he could see something in her eyes that baffled him. She blinked a few times quickly, and swallowed heavily before answering. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Spencer. We’ve missed you.”

 

* * *

 

“Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, congratulations!” Rossi boomed, slapping his best friend on the back and laughing at the dazed expression on his face.

“I can’t believe that it’s over,” Hotch admitted. “Twenty-two weeks of my life felt like forever, and it’s finally over.”

“Congratulations, Dad,” Jack cheered, running up and throwing his arms around his neck. “Now you can go fight bad guys like Uncle Dave! For real this time, since you’re pretty bad at it on the Xbox.”

Suddenly Hotch was surrounded by his friends, all jostling in their excitement to congratulate him. “It took me two goes to pass,” Reid admitted sheepishly. “Until Gideon managed to convince them it was my brain they wanted, and not my ability to run an obstacle course. Or… inability, actually.”

Morgan was looking around at the graduates with a strange, discerning expression. “Hey man, I bet after three weeks of training with me, you could run any obstacle course they could throw at you,” he said, nudging Reid.

He shot a concerned look at Hotch. “Hotch, you heard that. I’m pretty sure that was a threat. You can arrest him for that now, right? Oh wait, I can arrest him for that, can’t I?”

Hotch was saved from answering by two sets of arms wrapping around him and drawing him into an awkward, three-way hug. “Great, now we have another protective friend legally allowed to carry a weapon,” Emily grumbled into his ear. “We’re never going to be able to date again.”

JJ giggled, kissing his cheek and leaving a waft of peppermint scent behind as she let go and grinned up at him. “Don’t worry Emily, if they try and background check our dates, we can just shoot them first. Reid will testify against them, he’s terrified of women with guns.”

“No, I won’t!” came the indignant reply. “And what? No, I’m not! What evidence do you have of that?”

Garcia appeared, positively vibrating on the spot with excitement. “Oh yes you will, bucko. Otherwise you’ll have me to answer to!” She replaced Emily with hugging Hotch, squeezing tight enough to make him wheeze slightly in a panic. Morgan met his gaze and raised his hands in an obvious ‘I can’t help you, man’ pose.

“One of us, one of us,” Garcia chanted in a hushed whisper into his ear, and Aaron wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a threatening tone or a welcoming one.

Reid was still rambling. “I’m not scared of women with guns; I’m scared of _Elle_ with a gun. Who isn’t?”

“Thanks guys,” Hotch said, extracting himself from their over-enthusiastic congratulations. “Thanks for all coming out today.”

Morgan snorted. “Are you kidding? We wouldn’t miss this for the world. Our little lawyer, all grown up and ready to shoot people.”

Suddenly Haley appeared, hands clutched in front of her nervously, and his friends mysteriously vanished as though swallowed by a portal from one of the terrible movies Reid always made them watch. “Haley,” he greeted her, trying not to sound too surprised. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Rossi called me,” she admitted. “And Jack.” She paused, and looked puzzled for a moment. “And a lady calling herself Mrs. Rossi, but I think it was Penelope. They were all pretty adamant I come today.”

He held his hand out and shook hers, unable to shake the awkwardness of the moment. He was going to kill his friends, good intentions aside. “It’s good to see you,” he said, and realized a moment after he said that it was the truth. She looked good. She looked happy.

“This is big,” she said, looking around. “You’re going to be a real superhero now. Jack’s really excited. You’ll be saving people, just like you always wanted to.”

“I wanted to be a lawyer.”

She laughed and her eyes glittered with humour and a wistfulness. “You never wanted to be a lawyer. Coming home every night seeing what you saw, it was destroying you. You wanted to stop the crimes before they happened. It just took you a while to realize it. Mostly because I stopped you, and that was selfish of me.”

“Haley…”

She shook her head and pulled him into a tight hug, so familiar in his arms that it made his heart ache. “Shut up, Aaron. You never were good at knowing what was good for you. That part of your life is over, it’s gone now. But this part is just beginning, and you’re going to be amazing. Just don’t you dare get yourself killed or I’ll personally send David fucking Rossi to join you.”

She stepped back and smiled wearily. “Thanks, Hails,” he said softly. “I’ll do you and Jack proud.”

Her shrug was cocky and much more like the Haley he knew. “You already have.”

 

* * *

 

For a room so full of people, it was startlingly quiet. Rossi stood shoulder to shoulder with his team, all their backs straight and waiting, as the director of the FBI raised his hand for silence.

“Today marks the one year anniversary of the Boston deaths,” he began, “in which we lost six of our agents. They died doing their duty and doing it proudly. Their sacrifice was great, and they will always be remembered for what they gave to their country. But we aren’t here to talk only about their deaths. Today, we gather to remember their lives, and the lives of those who loved them. I ask the Unit Chief of the Behavioural Analysis Unit, David Rossi, to speak on their behalf.”

Rossi stepped forward, every head swivelling to meet his gaze. There was a range of emotions on display, everything from teary eyed grief to a stoic sort of respect. Every person there felt the heaviness of the moment, the possibility that one day, it could be their faces displayed in memoriam. Yet, it wouldn’t stop any of them from going out there and doing their jobs.

“The people lost that day were more than just good agents,” he said, and he didn’t bother to hide the emotion in his voice. His people deserved that much. “They were good friends.”

By the time he was done talking there wasn’t a dry eye in the room and the toast was unanimous.

“To those we’ve lost,” Rossi called, raising his glass.

“To those we’ve lost!” called back every voice in a chorus, and Rossi met the gaze of his team with watering eyes.

They were smiling.


	10. Found

Thirteen months after she’d begun working at the BAU, Reid walked up to her desk with two coffees in hand. It was something they’d done time and time again, an everyday morning ritual. A shared coffee with co-workers before the horrors of their workday truly sunk in. This day, Reid stopped by her desk and grinned cockily at her. “Morning, Emily,” he said, leaning against the desk with what was clearly his best poker face.

Sometimes she forgot he was raised in Vegas, then he cleaned up at Rossi’s poker nights and they were all forcibly reminded. “Why do you look so smug?” she asked.

He didn’t reply, just dropped a coin onto her desk and walked away whistling.

Emily picked up the coin and examined it, running her index finger carefully over the _ONE YEAR_ proudly embossed on the surface. She put it in her pocket with a smile, occasionally dropping her hand down to palm it between her fingers to ensure it was still there.

Things were better now.

 

* * *

 

“I met Dave on my first day of college, and can I say right now, he’s been the best and worst friend I’ve ever had.” The people crowded about the room laughed as Hotch raised his champagne glass at his friend, who tried to look innocent. “But he’s always been there for me. And I couldn’t be happier to be standing up here… again… and wishing the best for him and for Caroline.”

The bride laughed, tucking her arm around Rossi’s shoulders and raising her own glass back at Hotch. “Third time’s the charm!” she called out, to the collective amusement of the revellers.

“Since everything heart-warming I could say, I’ve already said before… twice… I’m going to hand the floor over to our newlyweds for their first dance!” Hotch stepped down as the music started up, striding over to the table containing his colleagues.

“I don’t actually think you’re supposed to reference past weddings during the current one,” Garcia scolded him as he took his seat next to Jack.

“He seems genuinely happy this time,” JJ remarked, watching Rossi twirl Caroline around energetically. “I actually think this one might work.”

Hotch looked up at his oldest friend, seeing the way his face softened when he looked at his new wife. He’d never looked at any of his past wives like that before. “I think it will too,” he agreed.

Emily stood quickly, grabbing Reid’s arm and tugging at it. “Come on Spencer, let’s get you out there!” she exclaimed, gesturing to the floor rapidly filling with dancing couples. Morgan snorted into his drink at the terrified expression on their youngest member’s face.

“What? No. Emily, you’ve seen me dance, it’s like a giraffe having an epileptic seizure,” Reid spluttered. Hotch laughed at him as Garcia grabbed Morgan’s arm and dragged him out to the floor, ignoring the tug-of-war going on between Prentiss and Reid.

“Oh, come on, Spence,” JJ teased. “You got shot for us once. Surely one dance won’t be too bad?”

Reid gave in, allowing Emily to pull him out of his seat and wrap her arm around his waist. “I’d rather be shot again,” he muttered as they passed Hotch.

“He’s actually not a terrible dancer,” JJ pointed out as the two friends spun along with the music, laughing at each other. Hotch nodded agreement, before standing and offering his arm to the media liaison. “What’s this?” she asked with a smile in her voice.

“Me asking a beautiful woman to honour me with a dance,” he said with a wink, taking her hand and pulling her up. “Unless you’d rather sit here until Morgan comes back and forces you to dance with him.”

She laughed and they joined their friends in celebrating Rossi’s new life.

 

* * *

 

Strauss looked as forbidding as Rossi had ever seen her, making the corner of his mouth twitch as the team quailed before her. They’d agreed ahead of time not to tell the team about their plans, instead letting it be a surprise.

He hadn’t known that Erin was such a good actor.

“As I’m sure you’re all very aware, you’ve been one person short for almost a year now. The few replacements for Greenaway you’ve had hardly lasted six months between them.” Strauss glowered, and the team shifted guiltily in their seats, as though it was their fault the recruits hadn’t handled the work. “As such, I’ve taken it upon myself to organise a replacement.”

Rossi could sense various eyes trying desperately to meet his gaze, and he focused intently upon looking put out, as though he’d been overruled and was _furious_ about it.

“May I introduce your newest recruit,” Erin began slowly, smiling suddenly. Reid paled, as though the smile was more terrifying than the scowl. “Special Agent Aaron Hotchner.”

The silence was deafening as Hotch stepped into the room with a sheepish grin. “Hi guys,” he said, half raising a hand in an awkward wave. Rossi roared with laughter as the team gaped in shock, Strauss joining him moments later.

Emily broke the silence, smiling wickedly. “Well, if it isn’t our newest newbie,” she teased, standing up to shake his hand. “Welcome to the team, probie.”

Hotch shook her hand back, shrugging. “Only until Morgan finishes his own stint at the Academy, then he gets to be the newbie,” he pointed out.

“Morgan wants to work in the BAU?” Rossi asked, surprised. That was the first he’d heard of it.

“Do you really think he’s not going to end up here?” Reid asked with an eye roll, gesturing to the inhabitants of the room. “I mean, statistically it’s insanely unlikely that we all ended up in the same career track, let alone the same team…” He paused, eyebrows scrunching together in consternation. “Actually, this entire premise is downright ridiculous…”

“Ahh, Doctor Reid,” Strauss cut in, straightening when she saw him. “I’ve left some paperwork on your desk I need signed, if you could please go and gather it together now.” Reid looked confused, nodding quickly and stepping out the door of the conference room and heading towards the bullpen.

“Wrong desk,” Rossi called after him as Reid went to walk down the steps. The taller man paused, turning slowly to examine his two superiors. Rossi stepped out the door, aware of all of the BAU watching him and trying to work out what was going on.

“I’m afraid we had to move your desk to somewhere more appropriate to your position,” he said with a smirk, watching Reid’s eyes widen as he realized what was going on. “If you choose to accept it, of course… Senior Supervisory Special Agent Reid.”

Reid turned his head slowly and stared blankly at the newly installed plaque with his name emblazoned across it on the door of the office next to Rossi’s. “Oh,” he said softly, and Rossi chose to take that as acceptance.

Prentiss groaned. “Oh my god, Reid’s our boss now,” she moaned.

 

* * *

 

Morgan pushed her slightly as they walked into the bar, sensing her hesitation. “Come on JJ, it’s just a date. He’s a nice guy, you’ll like him.”

“It’s a blind date set up by you,” she said huffily. “Morgan, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but this is a terrible idea!”

He didn’t let her go, just held her firmly by the shoulders and steered her up to the bar, towards a man facing away from them. JJ could hear Emily and Garcia giggling behind her, vanishing away to the other side of the room to pretend they weren’t watching her every move. “You’ll be fine,” Morgan murmured into her ear, giving her shoulder a friendly squeeze.

JJ opened her mouth to tell Morgan that this wasn’t going to happen, she’d changed her mind. The man turned, spotting Morgan and grinning crookedly, brown hair tumbling over his forehead rakishly, and eyes sparkling. “Derek!” he exclaimed, standing and holding his hand out. “This must be Jennifer. Derek has told me so much about you. I’m Will. William LaMontagne.”

Oh my god. He had an accent. An unbelievably sexy accent. She was going to kill Derek Morgan.

JJ knew she was gaping unattractively at him, closed her mouth and stuttered out an introduction. Morgan snorted at her. “You kids have fun,” he teased, vanishing and leaving her with the unexpectedly handsome William.

“I must look like an idiot,” she admitted, taking a seat next to him and looking down, face flushing.

He blinked and turned startled eyes onto her. “That’s not the word I would have used,” he said mildly. She looked up at him, stomach twisting strangely as she met his dark gaze.

“What would you have used instead?” she asked, managing a smile.

“Beautiful,” he replied smoothly, and it was so corny she felt like smacking him on behalf of every woman who’d ever had to stand a terrible pick up line.

But oh god, it worked.

 

* * *

 

Reid had visited this place monthly for the past eighteen months, and he’d always had his solitude. Others had been there, of course, there were always fresh flowers and the grave was lovingly tendered, but never when he was present.

Today there was a man at the graveside, staring off into the distance with a vacant gaze. Reid recognised him instantly, and debated with himself over whether or not to walk over there; if it was worth missing his monthly visit. It wasn’t like Ethan would know if he was there or not.

But then again, there was no reason for Gideon to be there at that particular time either, unless he’d intended upon running into Reid.

“I don’t know why people fear graveyards,” Gideon said quietly as Reid walked up and stood next to him. “There’s something endlessly peaceful about them.”

“People fear loss,” Reid replied as calmly as though the last year and a half had never happened.

Gideon shook his head slightly. “They fear moving on,” he corrected. “Most of them are perfectly content to wallow in their loss forever.” His scrutiny was intense, but Reid bore it silently. Gideon had always known how to get under his skin, push him into his next move.

But he wasn’t that scared, lost college kid anymore, or the green agent who didn’t dare speak out. They’d found that out at Boston. “Are you ever coming back?” he asked his mentor, not entirely sure what answer he wanted.

A deep breath beside him. “Maybe. Probably not. There’s not much reason to, not anymore.”

“You’re a great profiler. One of the best,” Reid felt obliged to point out. One mistake, no matter how terrible, didn’t negate all the amazing work Gideon had done. He’d created the BAU. “We need you.”

His mentor laughed, the sound oddly out of the place in the quiet gloom of twilight surrounding them. “Wrong, Dr. Reid. I can tell you’re wrong just by looking at you, at how much you’ve changed.” Reid waited, unsure of what the other man meant. Gideon turned to face him properly and smiled, placing one hand on his shoulder. Reid understood suddenly. They were equals now. “You don’t need me as much as you once did,” Gideon said. “None of you do. And that’s okay.”

Reid shivered, the cool air nipping at his uncovered arms. “Thank you, Jason.”

When they parted, it was as friends and Reid knew he’d never see Jason Gideon again. He didn’t feel sorrow over that fact, though. It was okay to move on. That was the last thing Gideon had taught him, and the most important.

And he wasn’t alone.

**Author's Note:**

> **Edited August, 2017.**


End file.
